


you are my sunshine, my only sunshine

by cygnus (sunsprite)



Series: to the lonely love child [1]
Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Small Town, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Childhood Friends, Coming of Age, Family Issues, Fluff and Angst, Friends to Lovers, Growing Up Together, Implied/Referenced Past Child Abuse, M/M, Mark Centric, Mutual Pining, Personal Growth, Self-Acceptance, Slow Build, Slow Burn, Underage Drinking, only one scene tho
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-14
Updated: 2018-09-26
Packaged: 2019-07-12 03:15:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 37,544
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15986459
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunsprite/pseuds/cygnus
Summary: Home has always been a place: Vancouver with its unpredictable rainfalls and crowded, neighboring suburban cities. But Mark didn't know home could be a person until he meets Lee Donghyuck, a certified strawberry lollipop hoarder who steals sunshine and puts it in his pockets.





	1. morning glory

**Author's Note:**

> _please don't take my sunshine away._

For as long as Mark could remember, he’s been convinced that Lee Donghyuck is too magical and too good to be true. 

He first met the boy who came from a lineage of the morning star when the sky was a pool of dark fading blues, the lingering sun setting behind the mountains in the distance. Mark doesn’t know how long he’s been sitting at the rickety swings with tear-stained cheeks and unruly snot dripping down his nose. The winds are chilly too, with winter advancing, but not once has it snowed. The weather is cold enough to ice over wet surfaces and form over windshields of cars, but never enough to snow. 

He woke up with the extra weight of homesickness pushing down on his chest today, so heavy that Mark felt as though he couldn’t breathe. He went for a walk to clear his mind, but he ended up in a playground that seems more or less deserted, rusting away into antiquity, and the heaviness in his chest only grew.

Mark wants to go home. He didn’t want to go to Gramp’s townhouse that was collecting dust with its worn down brick carapace. He wants to go home, back to Vancouver, where the frigid weather gave him more comfort than the cold here in this suffocating small town that made him feel inconsequential and lost; Vancouver, despite its slippery roads and constant rain showers and unpredictable snowfalls; Vancouver, with its Koreatown located in the west side along Robson Street that’s mapped into the deep crooks of his memory; Vancouver - Mark’s true home. Mark's only home. 

He misses it so much.

Mark was too busy sniffling and wiping his face with the sleeve of his jacket that he misses the quiet footsteps approaching him. Mark jumps when he hears a creak beside him.

“Hey,” the boy says, words muffled by the strawberry lollipop he has in his mouth. 

Startled, Mark quickly hides his face with his arm and turns to the side. He can feel his entire face burn in embarrassment. Gossip spreads fast in small towns; he didn’t want kids his age to know that Mark Lee is a crybaby at twelve years old. However, the mystery boy thankfully didn’t seem to recognize Mark even though they’re in a town where everybody seems to know each other. 

“ _Hey_ ,” the boy repeats himself. Mark doesn’t budge from hiding his face. When he hears the boy sigh, Mark chances a peek at him, finding that the boy is rummaging through the pockets of his windbreaker. He’s all bundled up, a thick scarf wrapped over his neck that almost covered half of his face, and a beanie that covered most of his hair. The boy takes out a lollipop and holds it out towards Mark. “Take it.” 

Mark frowns, warily eyeing the candy, before he mumbles, “I’m not supposed to take candy from strangers.”

The boy huffs, making a circular motion at his face. “Do I _look_ like a bad guy?”

He has a logical point that kicked whatever suspicion out of Mark’s orbit of flawed reasoning. Mark meekly accepts the lollipop, quietly thanking the boy, but he doesn’t take off the wrapper to stick it in his mouth. He just keeps staring at it, wondering if the same brand also exists in his hometown. 

“Why’re you crying?” 

Mark keeps his head down. He bites his wobbling lip, trying to stop the onslaught of tears that keeps coming whenever he thinks about home. He hates the weakness, the vulnerability, the wrought self-pity that leaves him feeling ugly and ungrateful. “I miss home.” 

“Home?” 

“Vancouver.” Mark says, twirling the stick of the lollipop between his fingers. “I just moved here and I don’t like it here. I want to go back but I can’t because my mom doesn’t want to go back. I’m stuck here and I hate it.” 

Everything had changed when he left home a few months ago. His mother had taken the pre-packed bags from underneath Mark’s bed when she woke him up in the dead of night. Still riddled with sleep, Mark hadn’t understood what it was that they were doing when she took him by his small hand and left the weary foundation of their tiny, cape cod house. Vancouver was deathly chilly in the night, especially in the grueling middle of Autumn, but Mark liked it. He still did. He liked the cold and the juxtaposition of the warmth of another hand, even if they passed by cardboard houses and shopping carts filled to the brim with garbage bags that belonged to a ghost. 

“Where are we going?” he mumbled, bleary-eyed. His ears perked up when he heard a slight sniffle, and suddenly, the world before him became clearer. More awake. “Mom?” 

“We’re going away,” she responded after a hefty silence. 

“Away where?”

“Anywhere but here, sweetheart,” she tightened her grip around his hand. Underneath the mercury-vapor lamps, his mother’s eyes were red-rimmed and tired. Dull, even, but still thrumming with the faintest light of hope. “A new home.” 

“A new home,” Mark repeated in a whisper, and looked away. The notorious neighborhood, albeit quiet, still bustled with movement. East Hastings never slept but neither does it wake with sobriety to tell the tale either. 

His mother tugged him back to the present. “Be careful of where you’re stepping, okay? Let’s walk a little faster, now.” 

Mark nodded. He looked up at the sky, a drapery of smog and thick clouds covering the stars he never had the opportunity to see, but he caught a waxing moon hanging over him, keeping them company. Bright, lonely, and quiet. Mark wondered if the sky would be any different when they went to their new home. 

But when his mother had mentioned a new home, he didn’t think they’d end up leaving the city to live in a small town where his mother’s father was living in - the man who bought them the plane tickets in the first place. There was too much distance, too much space, too little notice, too much change in such a short amount of time, that Mark got whiplash in the abrupt shift of his surroundings and he ended up crying all the way there. 

Snot-ridden and bloated from crying, throat sore from screaming, limbs tired from kicking and thrashing, Mark gave his mother the complete cold shoulder when they landed and claimed their sparse baggage. He’d never met his mother’s family before, but he was too overwhelmed and tired to even think about being polite. Mark wanted everything to be a dream. He just wanted to go back home. 

He hid behind his mother, though, when his grandpa came to pick them up. He looked like a serene old man. Not super old, but with salt-and-pepper hair, wrinkles, an aquiline nose, and a face full of dark freckles caused by the sun. But still, Mark was upset, so he only bowed and ran off ahead of them. When he slowed down and glanced over his shoulder, a pang of guilt seized him when he saw his mother, haggard and worn out. Things had always been bad and unconventional, but realizing that he was making things worse for her snuffed out the flame of frustration in his chest. Mark didn’t have the heart anymore to act out. He wasn’t the only one upset. 

But even so. Adjusting to a new place was difficult and Mark was often racked with the melancholy of homesickness, and his mother barely went out the house ever since they first settled into his grandpa’s townhouse. Mark was mercurial, his mother was absent, and his grandfather was the only nice person he knew in the town so far.

“Don’t blame ya,” the boys sighs. Mark glances up at him through his bangs, surprised. He didn’t expect that reaction; usually people would try to comfort him to the point of it being maudlin. “I hate it here too. This town sucks. I dunno why _I’m_ even here when I could be back in Jeju looking at cool rocks all day! Parents suck, but you didn’t hear that from me.”

Mark grows quiet, looking down at the wood chips. He knows that the boy was joking, but Mark ends up thinking about his dad. “Yeah. Parents suck.” 

He ignores the curious look the boy sends his way. Sniffling, Mark dries his wet eyes with a fisted sleeve, wincing at the sting of his skin after rubbing at it so vigorously. He finally unravels the wrapper of the lollipop and sticks it in his mouth. It’s lemon-flavoured. Mark likes it. If the sun had a flavour, it would be lemon. 

“What’s your name?” the boy asks. He’s gently kicking his legs back and forth, letting himself swing in a light oscillation. 

He frowns at the thought of giving his name out to a stranger, but he's already spilled the beans about why he was crying. He might as well continue his honest streak. “Mark Lee,” he replies. “You?”

“Cool! We’ve got the same last name. I’m Donghyuck,” he says. There’s a stilted pause before he continues on with awkward intonation. “I - um. I think it’s okay that you miss home. You’ll always miss home but it won’t feel super bad anymore when you get used to it here. You just gotta suck it up.” He shrugs, rolling the lollipop around in his mouth. 

Mark realizes that, in a way, they’re similar when he sees the wistful look in Donghyuck’s eyes. They’re both young boys missing different homes, and knowing that there’s someone else who can understand the feeling gives Mark a sense of mild comfort. When Donghyuck meets his gaze, Mark manages to smile a bit. “Thanks, Donghyuck.” 

Donghyuck purses his lips, looking away. “Whatever. All this talk about home is making _me_ homesick now, you weirdo. Let’s talk about something else.”

Mark shrugs. They talk about mundane things, not that any twelve year old (and eleven year old, as Mark eventually finds out) has anything interesting to talk about in the first place. Mark learns that the both of them go to the same elementary school but haven’t crossed paths because of their different grades. Donghyuck lives near by the playground, in a cottage near the outskirts of town, while Mark’s townhouse is situated in a less-crowded part of the town near the pier, where he can often smell the brine of the ocean drenched in moonlight. 

Mark didn’t know he’d wandered so close to the edge of town. He’d been too distracted by his ponderous thoughts to be aware of his surroundings and where his legs were unconsciously taking him. 

“Uh oh,” Donghyuck stops in the middle of telling Mark about his hobbies that consisted of tree climbing, tree jumping, tree watching, and a lot of tree-related things. He's looking skyward, a pensive frown on his face. “It's already so late. My mom's gonna _kill_ me.”

Mark doesn't think his own mother is going to care, but he goes along with it anyways. “Same here. Um,” he fidgets with his sleeves, watching as Donghyuck hops off the swing and stretches his limbs. “Thank you for uh - talking to me. I mean, you didn't have to and I don't know why you did, but thanks.” 

Donghyuck gives him a funny look. He shrugs. “Dunno why either. Mama says that we should be kind to others when the world is not kind to them. I just listen to her.” 

“Your mom sounds so _cool_.” 

Donghyuck scrunches up his nose, but looks pleased. “I guess so? But can we continue our talk next time? I really gotta go home before she has a cow. And a lot of chickens.” He tilts his head and gives Mark a lazy salute. “See ya around, Mark.”

“Bye, Donghyuck.” He calls after him with a wave. As he watches Donghyuck hurry off, his back becoming smaller in the distance, Mark jolts up from the swing set as well, realizing he should head home too before it gets any darker. 

He walks home that evening, smiling a tiny bit. Next time, Donghyuck had said. The anvil of longing in his chest lifts just a bit, and Mark can finally breathe.

☀

Gramps, Mark deduces, is a nice dude.

He was a retired English professor from Korea who moved here in order to live a peaceful life after the passing of his wife. He has a large collection of books in various languages that he keeps in his bedroom, ranging from Korean and American Literature, and even lets Mark borrow a few books written by Vancouver authors to keep himself occupied and at ease with the familiarity of the culture within the prose. It makes Mark feel a little bit at home despite the intangibility.

Even though they’d just met and Mark is still a bit awkward around him, Gramps is the one who asks him about his day, cooks for him and prepares his lunches, drives him to school back and forth, and the one who reads to him at night and tucks him to bed. He is the who pets Mark’s head with quiet affection, helps him with his homework, and attends those stupid parent-teacher conferences. And he is the one who brings a tray of food up the stairs to his mother’s room, who takes care of her when Mark isn’t around to witness it, and the one who apologizes to him when his mother doesn’t want to see Mark - like today.

No one talks about the reason behind leaving Vancouver. No one talks about what they left behind in Vancouver. And if he hears the faintest sounds of muffled sobs behind a closed bedroom, the tired sighs Gramps lets escape in the emptiness in the kitchen - no one talks about that either. 

Gramps is nice, but he also thinks Mark isn’t mature enough to handle the burdens of familial wreckage, and it leaves Mark discouraged and wishing he can grow up faster. 

That’s how he finds himself at the playground again, mood mirroring the deep blue of the sky and the silver sun. He wonders if this is how life is going to be in the long haul now: always feeling blue and a little unwanted. He hates it. 

“Jeez,” he hears a familiar voice to his right again, and Mark barely holds back a flinch. Donghyuck plops down onto the swing beside him. There’s a lightheartedness to his disposition that grates on Mark’s nerves. “Is this gonna happen all the time when we happen to see each other?”

“I’m not crying,” Mark says, lips pulled into a tight line. 

“Anyone with two eyes can see that, weirdo. I’m just saying. Why so glum, chum?” 

Mark purses his lips, irritation bubbling inside of him at the boy’s flippant tone of voice. “Why do _you_ care? You're just a stranger! We don’t even know each other. Maybe you should just mind your own stupid business and leave me alone.” 

Donghyuck draws back in surprise but is quickly overtaken by indignation. He jumps up from the swing with his nostrils flaring as he retorts. “I don’t care. I don’t care at all. I’m just doing this because I didn’t want to disappoint my mom, but I don’t care about that anymore. Go eat a rotten egg, Mark Lee.” And with a dramatic harrumph, Donghyuck whirls around and stomps away from the playground and back onto the tarmac road. 

Mark doesn’t look up when he leaves. He continues to glare down at the wood chips, crossing his arms tightly when he fights off the cold wind. The flame in his chest doesn’t die out until Mark finally turns his head after a few minutes of fuming, and he spots a lollipop on the empty swing beside him. He takes the lollipop. Lemon-flavoured again. 

The irritation wanes, override by remorse. He shouldn’t have snapped at Donghyuck for trying to comfort him in his own, strange way. Donghyuck, despite not knowing Mark, still listened to him and gave him candies to cheer him up when he didn’t need to. He could have walked away pretending he never saw Mark cry that day, but he didn’t. 

The discomfort in his chest gnaws at him; he never had the fortitude to be stubborn when it comes to admitting wrong. 

With resolve, Mark comes back to the playground the next day after he went to the convenience store and waits for Donghyuck to show up. He swings high and jumps off, stumbling forward from a clumsy landing, and goes down the slide that gives him the goosebumps when it groans beneath his light weight. Mark picks wood chips out of his shoes, looks up at the grey sky that hid the sun, and walks across the ledge of the playground box as he tries to maintain balance. And after what seemed to be hours, he finally sees a familiar figure walk down the road, his trajectory aimed directly ahead with no intent on stopping. 

“Donghyuck,” Mark calls as he stumbles down the ledge. The boy in question skids to a halt with a sour look on his face. His eyes darts back and forth as though he was debating whether or not he should run. Even if he did, it was too late, because Mark was already jogging towards him. 

Donghyuck juts his chin out, pointedly ignoring him with closed eyes. Mark heaves a sigh and searches through the pockets of his coat. He takes out a strawberry-flavoured lollipop and holds it out at Donghyuck, to which he opens one eye to inspect at curiously and with a bit of disbelief. 

“Sorry,” Mark says. The word tickles his throat, and he fidgets with the hem of his knit sweater with his other hand. “Thanks for the lemon one, by the way. And - and I _was_ glum, but I took the glum out on you and it was wrong, and I’m sorry. I didn’t mean what I said either. I mean - sure, you seem kinda annoying, but I don’t want you to actually leave me alone. I want to be friends for real.” He stops, lips forming a thoughtful frown. “I - um, if you want? If you don’t want to then - then that’s gonna be super awkward but that’s okay. I mean, maybe we can be like friends but not _friends_ friends? Unless you don’t want that either, then - “

“Ugh, and I thought _I_ was the talkative one,” Donghyuck interrupts him and throws a long-suffering look up at the sky. He plucks the lollipop out from Mark’s hand, unwraps it, and sticks it in his mouth with a contented hum. “You’re forgiven but only because you got me my favourite flavour.” He’s got that sour look on his face again. “And if I’m annoying, then _you’re_ stupid.” 

Mark gapes in surprise at how easily he was forgiven, but then he grows red in the face at the shameless insult. “Wha - how am I stupid? You’re stupid _er_!”

“You’re stupid _est_.”

“That’s not even an actual word!”

“When I’m here anything can exist.” Donghyuck huffs, squaring up his shoulders. “And that’s what you get for being friends with me, Markie.” 

“I want a full refund,” Mark gripes, and recoils when Donghyuck doubles over in laughter. His mouth was pulled into a heart-shaped grin and Mark wonders if Donghyuck was the one who stole all the sun’s light and warmth, not the wintry spirits. 

Once Donghyuck recovers from his laughing fit, he beams at Mark with rosy cheeks and points at him with his lollipop. “Guess we’re stuck together now, huh?” 

Something fuzzy fills his chest. “Yeah. Guess we are.” 

When the sky darkens, Mark walks home that night with a delicate warmth cradling his heart. He made his first friend in this town. He hasn’t felt this light and buoyant in a long time, and when Mark glances up at the sky, he finds that the large mandala of the moon has accompanied him. Bright, quiet, and no longer lonely.

☀

Donghyuck is a summer rainstorm, shining brightly one moment and shrouded by thunderclouds the next. Getting to know him is like trying to solve a rubix puzzle in the shape of a dodecahedron, all confusing twists and wrong guesses, but pleasant, because amidst his potty mouth and brazen exterior is a soul like no other.

The playground becomes their thing now. They meet up everyday at the same time in the afternoon and sit at the swings. They get along for the most part; Donghyuck finds solace in their Korean heritage and will speak with him in their native tongue at times, and Mark goes along with it despite his stilted pronunciation, because he understands how comforting a sense of familiarity is. 

Topics in their conversations shift so very often that Mark feels like a sailor lost at sea. One moment Donghyuck is praising himself in how he tends to his mother’s garden with impeccable skill, to how much he absolutely adores the colour yellow and how many articles of clothing he has in that colour, to how much he detests his little brother because he always steals his candies. He has an entire stash of candies and strawberry-flavoured lollipops hidden underneath his bed and Mark is surprised his entire mouth hasn’t rotten yet from the amount of processed sugar he eats in a day. And he really loves trees. 

But it’s nice. Learning bizarre and new things about Donghyuck is nice. 

Other than the swings, they play tag when they’re bored. Donghyuck cheats a lot and Mark gets called a sore loser whenever he expresses his distaste for Donghyuck’s unfair tactics, but they also play soccer with a battered ball they found stuck in a tree which Donghyuck had climbed (to no one’s surprise). Mark kicks Donghyuck ass in soccer as an act of karma, and when Mark taunts him and dubs him a sore loser, Donghyuck tackles him down onto the frozen grass and they wrestle it out. Mark frequently goes home with grass stains on his poor white t-shirts but with a big smile on his face. 

And slowly, but surely, the thought of home migrates into the southern hemisphere of his brain. Soon enough, winter passes. Spring arrives again, and so does school.

“I haaaate school,” Donghyuck whines, kicking at a pebble on the road as they make their way to his cottage. Walls of compact houses lessened as they reached the edge of town, where the road was lined with tall feathers of grass and cornfields. Mark has been subjected to his tinny complaints ever since school had ended. “I got stuck with Chan and everyone knows how bad it is being in her class. She doesn’t let us do multiplication, forbids mechanical pencils, wants us to handwrite, and talks way too much.” 

Mark shrugs, “Old people talk a lot.”

“Does your grandpa talk a lot?”

Mark tilts his head and thinks about it. Gramps likes to read and listen to classical music more than he likes to talk to people. Mark would find him reading another autobiography in the living room while _The Thieving Magpie_ played from his adored electric turntable, and sometimes, Mark would join him. “Nah. He’s a quiet dude.” 

“Lucky. Whenever I get to visit my granny in Jeju, she always yaps in my ear about how I should stop being brainwashed by video games,” he grumbles in response. “Anyways. How’s it like being a high schooler now?”

Mark shrugs. He still felt out of place and unsettled in town. He has yet to be fully accustomed to the whirlwind of change and was still a bit too shy to interact and befriend his peers. They’re too daunting to approach. He sits by his locker and eats lunch alone, but he doesn’t mind. He likes the quiet. Donghyuck was his only friend, but Mark doesn’t mind that either. “It’s okay. Nobody shoved me into a locker yet like they do in the movies so I think that’s a good sign.”

Donghyuck snorts.

The cottage eventually comes into view. Mark had expected the cottage to be one of those old, rusty ones on the verge of falling apart like in the somber fairy tales, yet when they arrived at Donghyuck’s home, it was nothing on par with his imagination. The cottage was tucked low into a grassy embankment, cocooned by an abundant platoon of vibrant flowers in large shrubs, vines of overgrown clematis flowers draping over the slate roof and climbing the trellises, and neatly trimmed hedges that winded a pathway towards the entrance of the cottage. It looked colourful and alive with a thin silver trail curling from the stone chimney. 

“Bro. _Bro_. What the fu - frick,” Mark gapes in awe. “You live in heaven.” 

“ ‘Cause I’m an angel, right?” 

“More like Satan’s offspring, but seriously, your cottage is sick. I rather sleep in your garden than in my own bed even if I’ll get eaten to death by all the creepy crawlies.” 

Donghyuck hums, a pleased look on his face as Mark follows after him through the trail that led them to the door. He throws a grin around his shoulder, “A sleepover is in the works, then.” 

They take off their shoes at the entryway. The interior is cozy and commodious, inundated with warm colours and decor that complimented the terracotta flooring and the fake plants that line the window sills. Russet curtains, family photos, and floral wallpaper; Mark feels like he stepped into another realm from the way the sun filters through the windows in pillars of light. They move to the small kitchen that was adjacent to the common room and finds Donghyuck’s mother taking out a pot from the fridge. When Donghyuck introduces Mark to his mother, Mark stammers a greeting and quickly bows. 

“Nice to meet you, Mark,” she says with a kind smile, and shakes his hand. Mark can see where Donghyuck got the shape of his lips and the curves of his eyes from. “I’ve heard a lot of good things about you from Hyuckie. He never stops talking about you and says you’re his bestest friend and that - “

“Mama, stop please,” Donghyuck whines, face colouring. “I didn’t say that. I said Mark is a pain in the ass and that I wish a UFO from space would find him and take him away from Earth.” 

Mark refrains from smacking his arm and glares at him instead. Donghyuck sticks his tongue out before he turns to his mother. “We’ll be in my room. If you hear any concerning sounds, then it’s probably just me trying to push him out the window. No biggie.”

His mother laughs and shoos him away. She seems friendly and easy to get along with. Gentle, too. Responsive. There’s a twinge in Mark’s chest as he wonders why his own mother couldn’t be like that, why she was so absent, why she didn’t want to see him anymore. But he buries the longing down, compartmentalizes it for later, and trails after Donghyuck. 

They pass by the living room and Mark spots a younger looking boy sitting on the couch, aggressively changing channels on the remote control. That must be Donghyuck’s infamous little brother, and Mark waves at the boy when Donghyuck greets him with a light smack to the head.

“Ow. Whaddya want, buttsniffer?” He gripes, rubbing the back of his head. Mark can see an attitude resemblance between the two brothers, funnily enough. 

“Bootlicker, this is Mark. Mark, this is Bootlicker. Or Jisung,” Donghyuck says. “I ask God everyday why me, of all people, have to be stuck with him as my baby brother.” 

Jisung looks up at him coolly. “ _You’re_ the reason why God doesn't talk to us anymore, hyung.” 

Mark cackles, and Donghyuck jumps onto Jisung and knuckles the top of his head. 

 

 

The first thing Mark notices about Donghyuck’s bedroom is that it’s remarkably bright.

The walls are a vibrant shade of lemon yellow adorned with posters of Japanese video games. A timber desk sits by the corner with a plastic chair, and a bookshelf rests beside it with framed family photos taken in what Mark assumes to be in Donghyuck’s hometown along with souvenirs in one row, a collection comic books and graphic novels in another, and figurines in the next. A large plushie of a bear sits on his unmade bed and wrinkled clothes are scattered across the floor. The room faintly smells of lavender and citrus. 

“Welcome,” Donghyuck throws his arms up into the air as he spins in a full circle, “to my domain!”

Mark sets his backpack down, almost tripping over a tangled mess of pants. “I think I just stepped into a Teletubbies episode.”

Donghyuck doesn’t grace him with a response and flops onto his bed. Compared to Donghyuck’s room, Mark’s was lacking in personal flair and taste. It was still lackluster and vacant, save for the books his grandpa had given him to keep and his white toque with a maple leaf on it. He didn’t want to decorate it in hopes of someday, he’ll return home. But it was wishful thinking as always. 

For the next half an hour, Mark diligently finishes his math homework and manages to read a few chapters of his book in the accompaniment of the low thrumming of the kitchen exhaust fan and the pressing of buttons on Donghyuck’s gaming console that harmonize with each other. Surrounded by yellows, by brilliant hues, lifts his spirit. It was more vibrant than the white walls in his room of the townhouse. 

He looks up when Donghyuck makes a frustrated noise in the back of his throat and puts his gaming console to the side, and calls out amidst the quiet, “Hey nerd. Come here.” 

Mark dog ears the page he’s on before he closes it, narrowing his eyes. “Why?”

“Just come here,” his voice is borderline whiny. He’s making grabby hands at him, and reluctantly, Mark gets up from the floor. 

Donghyuck rolls to the side and pats at the empty space beside him on the bed, and hesitantly, Mark does as he’s asked. He settles beside Donghyuck, and as soon as his head hits the pillow, Donghyuck immediately leeches onto Mark and swings a leg over his hip, hugs his arm, and smashes his cheek against Mark’s shoulder. Mark screeches in shock and attempts to wriggle himself out of Donghyuck’s grasp, but he finds himself unfortunately confined to his clingy friend’s penchant for spontaneous cuddles. 

“What are you doing?” Mark asks miserably. 

“I’m sleepy and you’re like a life-sized teddy bear,” Donghyuck says, voice muffled from speaking into Mark’s shoulder, “so stop moving like a worm and stay still.” 

Mark sighs, eyes rolling up to the ceiling as he prays to whatever God there is to give him strength so that he doesn’t end up tossing Donghyuck over and onto the floor. Struggling is futile when it comes to Donghyuck’s touchiness, and he turns his head to the other side so he doesn’t get a mouthful of his hair. Enveloped by the warm sundance shining through the windows, spilling over their heads and cutting across the bright walls, and the comfortable silence in the room save for their calm breaths, Mark’s mind of muddled thoughts become blank. All he can focus on is how warm Donghyuck is, how his breath tickles his neck at times. 

Donghyuck is solid, is concrete - a tangible soul beside him. Even though the distorted world around them continues to spin on its axis, never the same and always changing, Donghyuck will still always be here. He is the morning star that always returns. Constant.

“Hey,” Mark murmurs, blinking wearily at the yellow walls. The sun is making him sleepy. Donghyuck hums in response. “You’re my bestest friend too, you know.” 

Donghyuck is quiet. Mark doesn’t get to hear his answer.

He closes his eyes and dreams in yellow.

☀

Before summer officially begins, Mark gifts Donghyuck a plastic bag filled to the brim with strawberry assorted candies from the convenience store and a keychain of a bear he won from a gachapon in the arcade. No gift-wrapping, no ribbons - all plainly and directly given to him. Mark didn’t like finding presents and was grateful that Donghyuck wasn’t picky, because the birthday boy wouldn’t let go of him for the next half an hour. The smile never left his face.

Mark sees his mother sometimes. She flutters by him in the hall and smiles at him in the kitchen. And though she asks him about his day when she’s feeling good enough to talk, Mark can’t deny the void that broils between them. Mark feels as though she’s become a ghost, where photographs have become scraps and memories have become garbage. She lingers and passes, melancholy stuck in the narrow hallways. 

Gramps says that she’s doing better, that she just needs time before she’ll be okay again. Mark wonders if they’ll ever be okay. 

The heat crawls over his skin at night, leaving him restless. In this long month filled with cicadas and frangipanis and roses in full bloom, the sun brings bowed heads underneath its angry glare and the smell of hot asphalt. Rusted spotlights and shrubs of myrtle remain idle. Mark swears the moment he steps onto the pavement ground one day that an egg could be fried on it, but the scent of summer strokes his skin in flushes of red and embraces him with wings of freedom. He tries not to think about missing the cold. 

The hot weather doesn’t prevent scraped knees from falling off bikes, hand-holding in the playground, and kicking each other off the slide for the most part underneath the grueling heat. Sometimes, Donghyuck brings along Jisung and his friend, Chenle, and hide-and-seek ensues within the woodlands. Donghyuck hides up in a tall tree and almost breaks his arm when he loses his footing from climbing down. Then, Mark would spend the rest of his day in Donghyuck’s cottage, drinking cold lemonade that provided a sweet, temporary release from the heat, and he’d listen to Donghyuck ramble on about another new interest he obtained within the next day. Or he'd break into another score of Michael Jackson medleys to annoy the hell out of him. Truly a rainstorm of spontaneous and fickle dreams. 

Most of all, Donghyuck likes summer the most. He lounges underneath the sun with a lollipop sticking from his mouth as though he was one with it, gently protected by the trees that was casting a canopy of dappled shade over him. He gets tanner, painted in all shades of delicate gold, and one day as they lie underneath the dried-out clouds, Donghyuck asks him, “Do you still miss home?”

Marks stares up at the unchanging blue of the sky. Maybe if he holds his hand up, he can reach it with his fingertips. The dry grass beneath him pokes at his skin. “I don’t know.”

Donghyuck hums in thought, moving the lollipop around in his mouth. He doesn’t say anything else. He sticks a hand onto Mark’s cheek and Mark slaps it away, too hot and sweaty to bear with human contact, and Donghyuck laughs. 

After a few more minutes of being lazy, they finally leave the playground vicinity. They take their bikes and ride down the road, back to town that was bathed in a disorientating haze from the hot weather with the muggy heat pressing in on them. They visit the arcade after bickering about where to go next that was located between a comic book store and a record store. Donghyuck chews on the white stick of his finished lollipop and throws it away. As soon as they run out of pocket change, they return to Donghyuck’s cottage. They bike past bus stops shrouded by summer shadows, stumble past uneven roads and pampas grass, and singe underneath the burning sun. 

“By the way,” Donghyuck says as they step into the cottage, “you’re staying over tonight.” 

“Uh. I am?” Mark asks, nonplussed.

“Yep! I’ve got something really cool to show you and Ma - Mom doesn’t mind. We’ve got spare clothes and toothbrushes and whatever the diddly darn you need. Plus, Jisung’s sleeping over at Chenle’s today, so that means less waste and more space!” 

Mark rubs the back of his neck in consideration. He likes to plan things ahead of time so he can prepare, but he supposes ever since Donghyuck made it his life goal to annoy Mark into oblivion, spontaneity has become a mutual friend. And he’s curious as to what the really cool thing is that Donghyuck wanted to eagerly show him. “I’ll have to tell my gramps ‘bout it.”

Donghyuck beams and shoves the telephone into his hand before he runs into the kitchen and noisily rummages through the refrigerator to grab cold drinks. Amused, Mark dials the landline and waits for his gramps to pick up, and when he does, Mark tells him of his sleepover plans tonight. Gramps easily agrees and tells him to have fun. 

“Bring him over some time,” Gramps says as well. “I’d like to meet the boy who’s been making my grandson very happy these days.” 

Mark’s face heats up, and he tells himself it’s because of the hot sun seeping in through the walls of the cottage. The way his gramps worded it flusters him, and he incoherently sputters something about how Donghyuck makes him want to tear his hair out more than anything reminiscent of joy, and tries to quell the warmth in his chest when he ends the call. 

“What was all that yelling about?” Donghyuck peeps his head out from the kitchen, holding two cans of soft drinks in his hands. “You sounded like a dying beluga.” 

“Nothing,” Mark quickly replies. 

Donghyuck eyes him weirdly, but as soon as his curiosity fades, he pitches a soft drink towards Mark and it hits him right in the forehead instead when he fails to catch it. 

 

Mark didn’t think "cool" meant shoving a thick book called _A Beginner’s Guide to Stargazing_ up in Mark’s face, making him go cross-eyed, and almost falling to one’s death by climbing out the window and onto the roof.

“Dude! What are you doing?” Mark hisses. It’s half past ten and he’s close to falling asleep, but Donghyuck seems to be reverberating with uncontainable energy that makes Mark anxious. He was leaning his head out, watching as Donghyuck tucks the book underneath his armpit and pulls himself up onto the slate roof with ease. 

“We’re gonna stargaze tonight,” Donghyuck hisses back, albeit in a more cheerful manner. He waves his hand impatiently at him, “Now c’mon already and get up here, you wimp.”

“How am I supposed to - you’re _crazy_!” Mark exclaims, unable to stop himself from peeking a look down. It wasn’t a far drop since the cottage was small, but still. He didn’t want to sprain an ankle or break an arm or hit his head on the wrong side. 

“Stop being a baby, butterballs,” Donghyuck taunts, and stifles a laugh when Mark holds up a fist as a half-hearted threat. Glaring up at him, Mark clambers out the window and holds onto dear life on the edge of the roof, and after a few minutes of stumbling and accidental cursing, Donghyuck helps pulls him up until he finally makes it. 

A gentle breeze brushes past him, the cold summer night alleviating the dredges of heat sticking to his skin. Mark stares up with wide eyes. The moon floats up there like a jellyfish, splitting open and spilling borrowed light, and among it is a tarpaulin of stars in bright clarity. There was no smog or thick haze that covered them up like back home; the stars are out in the earnest open, waiting to be seen. He wants to reach up for one, keep it in his hands, pocket it to bring home and keep them in a jar like a firefly. 

Even as darkness reigns, the light still wins. 

“Pretty cool, huh?”

Mark glances beside him. The both of them have tilted their heads skywards, and Donghyuck is smiling. Mark returns his gaze back up to the stars. Seeing how infinite the sky truly is, how infinite space - the whole universe - is, humbles him. Sometimes he feels small, but so are the stars in the distance, now that he thinks about it. His mind wanders back to the times he's slept in the arms of his mother back in their tiny cape cod house, hearing his father snore in the living room. He would fall asleep to the smell of tangy alcohol mixed with mildew. No one looked up at the sky a lot back home. 

“Yeah,” Mark says belatedly, voice quiet. He pulls his knees up to his chest and wraps his arms around them. “I think if - if my mom knew there could be stars as bright as these, maybe she would still have hope.”

When the silence between them lingers, Mark realizes the meaning behind the words that had left his mouth and he blanches. He barely has time to backtrack when Donghyuck pipes up, “What do you mean?”

“I, um. Well, it’s - nothing. Nothing.” Mark flails his hands around, shrinking back. “It’s just. It’s not easy to talk about. And - yeah. The words just slipped.”

He expects Donghyuck to keep prodding at him, considering how nosy he can be, but to Mark’s surprise, he doesn’t. Instead, Donghyuck nods with curt understanding and slaps open the book on his lap. “Okie dokie, then.” 

“Really?” Mark squints at him in suspicion. “Simple as that?”

“Simple as that.” 

And Mark finds trust and comfort in those words, because from Donghyuck, they’re honest. Genuine. And the almost-topic of his mother is dropped right then and there, like a penny into the endless ocean, deliberately forgotten. 

He listens on as Donghyuck launches onto a spiel about how they’re going to look for constellations as per instruction on the guide book. Mark questions his level of skill because to him, they all look like single milky dots in the sky and he can barely make out any distinguishable shapes. Donghyuck puffs up his chest, calls him an amateur, and inflates his own ego because his mother says he’s intelligent and sharp for his age. 

“Okay, _professional_ stargazer,” Mark says with a sarcastic bite, rolling his eyes, “go on, then.” 

After fumbling with the pages, squinting at the constellations and trying to match its shape in the sky, and bickering with Mark on whether or not the constellation they were seeing was correct, Mark brings his hand up and leaves a nonexistent space between his forefinger and thumb. “Hyuck, I am _this_ close to pushing you off the roof.”

Donghyuck flares his nostrils. “I’d like to see you fucking _try_.”

“You swore,” Mark gawked. “Don’t fucking swear!” 

“Don’t tell me not to swear when you just did!” 

“That’s because you swore first.” 

“I’ll swear whenever I want,” Donghyuck huffs, glancing up at the sky for a miniscule moment. He does a double take, quickly scans the book, and pinches Mark’s arm in terrible excitement. “Merlin’s beard! Mark, look, look, _look_ \- “

“Who’s Merlin?” Mark asks, quizzical, before he follows Donghyuck’s gaze. Again, he doesn’t see a distinctive shape. Mark frowns, “What are we looking at?” He follows Donghyuck’s finger as he connects the dots and traces out the constellation, and slowly, the shape settles in and Mark quickly double checks the book. “Whoa, Ursa Minor? That’s Ursa Minor! And - wait, why’s it called ‘Little Bear’? It doesn’t even look like a bear.”

“I dunno. You can ask Juno ‘bout that. Maybe she’ll turn you into a Ursa Dummy,” Donghyuck deadpans, and yells for mercy when Mark pulls him into a headlock. 

They wrestle and bicker around until Mark finally lets him go, and Donghyuck laughs into the twinkling air that mirrored the sound. Across the skyline flickers of faint lights that lit the town aglow with life, something that wouldn't have happened back home. 

And then and there, Mark discovers how he wouldn't be able to see the stars and search for constellations, wouldn't be able to find a haven in a deserted playground, wouldn't be able to bike along the pier and share lollipops in a bedroom flooded with lurid yellow, back home. Mark wouldn't have Donghyuck back home. Mark wouldn't have anyone back home. 

Mark looks up, watches Donghyuck tilt his head upwards, the moonlight scrawling over his side profile reminiscent of cutting through the water like moving stained glass. Up close, he hasn't noticed his moles before. He sees them, traces them with his eyes from the ones on his cheek to his neck, and finds the shape familiar. The words about home that have been sitting at the tip of his tongue is swallowed down, replaced by a thoughtful musing. 

“Hey.” Mark lifts a finger, lightly pressing it to Donghyuck’s cheek, startling the other boy. Mark moves his finger gently, connecting the dots from mole to mole, tracing out the shape of a constellation. “There's Ursa Minor here too.” 

He doesn’t think much about what he said but when all Donghyuck does is stare at him, wide-eyed and tense, Mark flinches away as though he’s been burned, his face growing hot. “I - sorry, that was just - sorry. I did that without thinking. That must have been weird, um. Sorry.” He fiddles with his hair before he tucks his hands underneath his legs and determinedly avoids eye contact. He was merely entranced by the similar paragon he discovered, yet the utter astonishment scrawled across Donghyuck’s expression left an unsettled feeling in his stomach. 

“Chill, it’s fine,” Donghyuck elbows him lightly. Then he absentmindedly touches his cheek, eyes lowered to his lap. A little bit shy. It leaves Mark stunned, because Donghyuck doesn’t do shy. He’s always bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. “I never really noticed before.” 

“Me neither,” Mark says unhelpfully. Something strange, unidentifiable, and tenderly warm blooms in the mantelpiece of his chest, that agitates him for a split second before he buries the feeling back down into its recesses. It brought a nerve wracking presentiment that didn’t sit right with Mark. He didn’t want to know what it was.

He clears his throat, making an effort to stand up. “Anyways, I think we should go back inside. It’s getting late and I don’t wanna end up falling asleep on the roof.” 

Donghyuck nods. He closes the book and slips back into his room first, before helping Mark and his clumsy limbs as well, trying to keep as quiet as possible. Once they’re back in, they get ready for bed, and Mark takes his place in the makeshift bed made from a fort of pillows and blankets on the floor. They say goodnight. Mark listens to Donghyuck’s steady breathing. And before he finally drifts off, he remembers what he’d wanted to say about home in the first place. To reiterate. 

“I miss home,” Mark whispers into nothing. No response. He closes his eyes and mumbles into his pillow, “But I think I’d miss you more.”


	2. let's be lucky people, you and me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> they grow up, and so does mark's feelings. (as well as his unhealthy coping mechanism for bottling things up)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **minor tw** for mentions of vague child/domestic violence,  & very vague mentions of homophobia. nothing explicit though!
> 
> (chapt. title from the waterparks song "lucky people")

_Growing up_ , Mark muses, _kinda sucks_.

And by that, he means puberty.

He’s always been scrawny, but pair that with awkward and disproportionate limbs, a changing stature, being pimple-faced, terrible voice cracks, and hair growing in _outlandish_ places - he’s the typical memo of a teenager. Not to mention the sudden requirement for all boys to maintain a tough-macho image; Mark’s isn’t so sure he’s meeting the compulsory checklist of making it or breaking it in the social milieu of gossiping cliques and dumbass jocks. Every boy in his school seems desperate in wanting to salvage their impression of being tough through being an asshole.

Although not everyone seems to be equipped with half a brain cell. The boy who sits beside Mark in his math class, Lucas, is nice. Friendly and a little too loud, kind of a class clown, but sincere. They eat lunch together, and Mark is happy that he was able to make a new friend especially since Donghyuck doesn’t attend the same high school as him. Since Donghyuck lives far from the heart of town, he attends another local one nearby his halcyon neighborhood that consists of a five minute bike ride. 

They still meet up after school at the playground and hang out at the arcade and text each other when they can, but Mark is a forgetful slow replier while Donghyuck is a quadruple texter-spammer, ensuing a lot of half-hearted grudges on Donghyuck’s side. But Mark makes an effort, even if it means staying up until two in the morning just to text Donghyuck to shut up and go to sleep when he messages him about random shit.

One day, when Mark had mentioned Lucas, Donghyuck latched onto his arm after he’d changed into his third pair of socks that day, droning on and on about how _yeah, so what if we’re in different high schools but you could at least show some long-lasting reassurance of our friendship so I don’t have to worry about my best friend abandoning me for some guy who doesn’t even have nice eyebrows -_

It took ten minutes of hair pulling and shoulder shoving to pry Donghyuck off of him, but then he grabbed the sides of Donghyuck’s face, squishing his cheeks together, to _intensely_ inspire back faith into the future of their friendship and to assuage his eccentric worries of being robbed of a best friend. “You’re always gonna be my number one, Hyuck, even if I get a fierce desire to be alone every time I’m with you. So can you, like? Shut up now?” 

Needless to say, they ended the day with a lot more cuddles.

The more they grow up together, the more they increasingly bicker and grate on each other’s nerves. But clashing personalities and conflicting opinions aside, they match in an unruly way like the colours teal and orange would. They’re a necessary paradox. A counterbalance. Together, they navigate the world and its incomprehensibility. 

Mark thinks it’d be nice if things could stay like this forever.

☀

Gramps takes Mark to the farmer’s market on a sunny day just before the farewell of another summer. Stalls were set up side by side in tight spaces, flourished with colourful banners and varieties of fresh fruits and vegetables, and they walk past a barn where he sees roosters and chickens.

They buy fresh corn and strawberries. Gramps was busy bargaining with one of the vendors, so Mark ends up wandering around down the aisle when he spots the colour yellow. A motley of flowers sit in display, yet the one thing that caught his eye were the sunflowers whose gold heads bobbed with subtle ease to the wind, garishly bright and demanding attention. Kind of like a certain someone. 

The woman handling the flowers smiles at Mark when he timidly approaches. He notices the price and almost trips on air, but subsequently brushes it off. He acts on spontaneity as he points at the sunflowers. “Can I get a bouquet of those, please?” 

“Of course,” she replies, and takes a few stalks of sunflowers and places it on the table in the back. Mark couldn’t see the process of the bouquet, but he hears the rustling of pink crepe paper and the clipping of stems. He teeters back and forth on the balls of his feet as he waits, putting a hand over his eyes to shield them from the sun’s glare, his head turned towards it like a sunflower would. 

“Is it for someone special?” 

Mark whips his head back to the vendor, taken aback. “Um.” He supposes Donghyuck is special in itself. Mark has never met somebody like him before - a professional at wheedling and an instigator at heart. “Yeah. I guess it is.” 

“Do you know the meanings of sunflowers?” 

“Not really.”

“The meanings varies, but usually it means feelings of adoration, warmth, and loyalty,” she says, handing him the neat bouquet of sunflowers to him to which he delicately holds in his arms, afraid he might ruin the golden crowns that sit atop the stems by accident. Mark passes the exact amount to her from his pockets, and she accepts it gratefully with a smile. “I hope your special person will like them.” 

Something in his chest flutters, like the scattering of petals brushing softly against his skin and raising goosebumps. He forces the sudden discomfort down, nodding. “Thank you.” 

Gramps eyes the sunflowers curiously, smiling as he asks, “And who are those for?”

“Hyuckie,” he admits demurely, keeping his gaze low on the ground. Gramps chuckles, ruffling his hair as he calls him sweet. They return to the old, green camry with duct-taped headlights. 

Gramps drives out of the farmers market and heads back to town. Before he does so, however, he stops by Donghyuck’s cottage and emboldens Mark to go on and deliver the sunflowers. Apprehension bubbles in his gut; he fiddles with his hair before he gets out of the car and heads towards the front door of the cottage. He hugs the bouquet close to his chest after he knocks. He shifts around in his stance, waiting restlessly and wondering why his heart wouldn’t stop beating so erratically. 

Mark visibly preens when the door swings open, and Donghyuck squints at him. There are pillow creases on the side of his face. He must have been napping.

“Mark?” he asks, stifling a yawn. “What’cha doing here?” He pauses as he takes in the bouquet. “And what’s with the - _oomf_!” Donghyuck nearly takes in a mouthful of petals when Mark shoves the bouquet at his chest. He sputters, bringing the bouquet away from his mouth, and looks at Mark incredulously, “Dude, what the hell?” 

Mark clenches his fists and hides them behind. “You - I mean, for you. Uh, they're for you.” 

He doesn't understand the knotting in his stomach. His palms are sweaty. When he first saw the sunflowers, he didn't think it'd be weird to give it to Donghyuck, but it might not have been the same for him. Maybe Donghyuck would think he's weirder, or look at him in disgust, because whenever the boys in his school do anything remotely kind to each other, they spit derogatory names that makes his heart sink and fortitude tremble. 

“For me?” Donghyuck studies the sunflowers, eyes catching a gleam of wonder from the sunlight. “Really?” 

He's too calm, and that makes Mark want to sink below the earth and let it swallow him whole when his face warms. “I - yeah, but it can be for your mom too, if you want? I just - I dunno, we went to the farmer’s market today and I saw the sunflowers and for some reason they reminded me of you and I bought them out of impulse and - and - “ he jerks his shoulders in a semblance of a shrug, unable to put his thoughts into coherent words, his voice falling quiet, “and yeah.” 

Donghyuck frowns, hugging the bouquet close to him almost protectively. “ _No way_. I’m not gonna give these over to my mom. You got them for _me_ , didn’t you? So I’m keeping them.” A wispy smile replaces the neutral line of his lips, looking fondly down at the bouquet. “We always grow a bunch of flowers in our garden, but we never get to grow sunflowers. I don’t think I’ve ever told you that sunflowers are my favourite kind though, have I?” 

When Mark shakes his head, Donghyuck laughs, “Guess you know me well, then. Thanks, Mark. I love them.” 

Donghyuck grins so wide that dimples appear and his eyes curve into crescents, and he looks at Mark with such open fondness, rosy-cheeked and bright-eyed, that Mark can feel his own heart beat strongly against his chest as though it was about to burst. Donghyuck has never looked at him like that before. There’s warmth curling around his chest, flooding his face, lingering at his fingertips, and Mark doesn’t think it’s from the heat haze. Mark is turned towards Donghyuck like sunflowers turned towards the sun. 

_The sun_. Right. Donghyuck feels like the sun. Bright, blinding, and indefinitely warm. 

When Mark rushes back to the car, he ducks his head down the whole ride home, hoping that his grandpa can’t see his blushing face.

☀

Despite how cheerful Donghyuck is, with his neverending repartee of humorous quips and uplifting spirit, Mark forgets that even the brightest people in the world can lose their grip on the light sometimes.

“Hyung isn’t here,” Jisung says, standing at the doorway while fidgeting with the ends of his sleeves.

“Oh.” Mark blinks. They had made plans to hangout a week ago, considering it was the only time they could meet due to their clashing schedules of extracurricular activities and tutoring sessions, and it strikes him as odd that Donghyuck would forget. The guy _never_ forgets anything - not even a petty grudge. “Where is he then?”

Jisung shrugs. “I don’t know.” He throws a glance over his shoulder, biting his lip, before he shuffles slightly across the threshold and lowers his voice. “He ran out. Um. They got into an argument - he and mom. I mean, they do that all the time, but I heard some mean things being said.” His lips pull into a tight frown, eyes flickering to the side. “I think they were fighting because of me.”

Mark finally notices how stiff Jisung is carrying himself; why he looks guilty when it isn’t even his fault, and the meekness that has overpowered his usual impetuosity and cheek-in-tongue attitude. Mark sighs and knocks his hand against Jisung’s forehead, voice softening. “Don’t be silly, now. I’m sure it’s not your fault.”

Jisung looks unconvinced, but he bites his tongue. He forces a curt nod. 

“I’ll look go look for him and bring him back, okay? I’ll prove you wrong.” Mark grins, ruffling the younger boy’s hair despite his protests, before he steps back and rests his hands into his pockets.

“How are you going to find him? You don’t even know where he went,” Jisung calls after him as Mark begins to walk down the pebbled pathway. 

Mark glances back, shrugging. “Intuition.”

The playground is an obvious possibility, but Mark has his doubts about it. Whenever Donghyuck is in a brooding mood, he wouldn’t dare to let himself become transparent in public. His abundance of pride is what prevents him from letting his facade of confidence crumble down into the revelation of his turmoil. Mark is certain that Donghyuck would rather swim all the way to Korea than talk about the inner workings of his feelings, but he also knows that Donghyuck will acquiesce if you poke at him in the right place. 

Therefore, Mark settles on the exact location to find him.

He ends up at the woodlands, not too far from the playground. Tall hickory and oak trees surround his path and the musty, earthy scent fills his nose. He lets the muscle memory of his legs take him to the exact oak tree Donghyuck is so fondly inclined to, and once he arrives, Mark uses his hand as a visor to shield his eyes from the sun and finds a lone figure sitting on top of one of the sturdy tree branches, sulking in the dappled shade. 

“Hyuck,” he says. 

Donghyuck flinches. He leans his head forward to glance down at Mark, eyes narrowing. “How’d you find me?”

“You’re predictable,” Mark simply replies. He dumps his backpack down onto the grass and surveys the tree trunk. 

“You can’t climb a tree, Mark.”

“Uh, yes I can. Just - I don’t know. Give me a minute or two.” Mark squints, his hands hovering above the trunk as he mentally calculates how he was going to pull this off. One, he could embarrass himself and have Donghyuck never let him live said possible embarrassment down - or two, crane his neck up high for the entire duration of the next hour coaxing out a half-hearted explanation from Donghyuck. Mark clicks his tongue. It’ll probably take more than an hour. Mark isn’t as good of a wheedler like Donghyuck is. That asshole.

Donghyuck scoffs. “You’re gonna break a bone for trying.” 

“Then come down here.”

“No.”

Mark pouts. Option number two it is. 

He plops down onto the grass, leaning his back against the trunk as he keeps his head up. Donghyuck crosses his arms and has his gaze fixated ahead of him. Mark sighs. “Jisung told me you got into an argument with your mom. Wanna talk about it?”

“That booger can’t even keep his mouth shut,” Donghyuck grumbles from above. 

“That booger has very nice intentions, mind you.” Mark says quietly. “He thinks it’s his fault that you two got into an argument. Is that true?”

Silence hangs in the air like the suspended moment before a falling glass shatters on the floor. Donghyuck speaks like the glass shards had dug into his skin. “No.” 

“Good. I think he should hear that from you in person, then.” Mark thinks back to the memory of an uneven stubble of a man sleeping on the couch. “It’s nice to hear that it wasn’t your fault that things fell apart. Does wonders for the soul.”

Another silence, until he hears Donghyuck rustle from above, shoes scraping against the bark and his low grunts from trying to maneuver his way down through the branches. He jumps off the lowest one and lands onto the ground, stumbling a bit, before he takes up every space besides Mark, their knees colliding and driving his sudden, gloomy thoughts away into the sun. 

Donghyuck looks at him with an intense frown. “I hate you.” 

“The feeling’s mutual.” Mark grins. Donghyuck huffs, a smile growing on his face, and Mark pokes at him again, saying, “You can talk to me about anything, you know.” 

Donghyuck sighs. His complexion is gently speckled with chiaroscuro from the sunlight peeking through the gaps of the foliage, and as his eyes wander about, he lifts up his hand and spreads his fingers. “I don’t like it when she compares me to other people.”

Mark stays quiet. Donghyuck lets his hands drop. “She always does it to me with Jisung - that I should be more diligent like him, do this or that more like him, _be_ like him. It sucks. It really sucks. I'm the oldest, yet the worst. I’m given all these responsibilities but she criticizes how I can’t even do them right. It’s like - it’s like she wishes she had a better son. It’s like I disappoint her for just being _myself_. It's like she - she wishes that I didn't exist.” 

His expression changes; his eyes become cloudy and resignation emanates from the slump in his shoulders. His voice is close to a whisper. “If I didn't exist, I'd probably stop giving her a hard time. She - endured enough, already. She'd probably be more happy without me.”

“Hey,” Mark murmurs, “You don’t mean that, Hyuck. You know that isn't true. I know it. And I'm sure your mom doesn't think that at all.”

Donghyuck takes in a deep breath, becoming slack with defeat and leans his head on Mark’s shoulder, his hair tickling Mark’s nose. “I don't know. I just wish she thought of me more as a son who's trying his best and less of a fuck up.”

A silence stretches between them. Mark watches a bee buzz around their heads before it flies off to somewhere else that was much more stimulating than sticking around two boys brooding. 

Mark has always seen Donghyuck’s mother as sweet and ever-understanding, but he supposes that all parents have their flaws and limits, just like all human beings do. Perhaps it is the absence of his own mother that made him look at Donghyuck’s mother with rose-coloured glasses. It was a wrong thing for Mark to do, to think like that, because every family is different behind closed doors. Mark should know that more than anyone else.

But most of all, his heart aches to hear how lowly Donghyuck speaks and thinks of himself. Mark has always lacked light but craved to be bright as Donghyuck, but Mark forgets sometimes that they're merely just young boys. One fifteen, the other merely fourteen. Still growing and working through what it was that made them so prone to self-doubt. But they have each other, as best friends and as pillars of support. And on days where the darkness is heavy and Donghyuck can’t shine the brightest, Mark vows to always be there for him to kindle that flame within him so that it can never die out. 

“I like you for who you are,” Mark finally says. His intonation is weird because he never thought he’d say those kind of words out loud, but he continues anyways despite the gnawing in his chest. “You - you make me happy. If you didn't exist, I would be sad. If you didn't exist, I wouldn't know the difference between polyester and cotton, or the difference between a sunny yellow and a cream yellow. I probably wouldn’t like lollipops either.”

Donghyuck snorts. 

Mark bumps their shoulders together lightly. “You don’t have to change. I mean, you don’t have to change for other people just because they said so. If you want to change for the better, you change for yourself and not because somebody wants you to change, you know?” Mark shrugs, Donghyuck’s head bobbing along to the movement. “You deserve to be appreciated just as you are, and I hope your mother can see that one day.”

The leaves crinkle along to the wispy wind that passes them. Donghyuck twirls a leaf in between his forefinger and thumb, until he places it on top of Mark’s knee and leans back. He faces Mark, and the cloudiness shrouding his expression before is no longer there, replaced by a gentle simmering of complacency. 

“You’re too nice.” Donghyuck sighs. “Way too nice for your own good.” 

Mark frowns. “Why wouldn’t anyone be nice to you?”

Donghyuck stares at him in a way that says _seriously?_ before he gets up from the ground. Mark follows suit, grabbing his backpack, but Donghyuck taps him on the nose that startles him to a halt.

“Thank you.” The tension has seeped away from his shoulders. “It means a lot.”

“No worries,” Mark mumbles. When Donghyuck turns and makes his way out of the woodlands, Mark trails after him, asking, “Where are you going?”

“Home,” Donghyuck replies. “Wouldn’t want the bootlicker to think he’s responsible, right?”

Mark blinks. Warmth swathes him from head to toe. His mouth curves into a smile and he bumps their shoulders together again. “Yeah. Wouldn’t want that. ” 

 

He watches on with relief when Donghyuck ruffles Jisung’s hair and wipes at his tear-stained cheeks, fondly calling him an idiot. Mark is glad.

☀

Donghyuck and his friends are, in short, a peculiar constellation.

Jeno’s got a moonlike smile and an auspicious nose that reminds Mark of a golden retriever. A little shy on the first meeting but openly talkative as soon as he became more comfortable. He also has the penchant of hugging anyone and everyone. Renjun has the discrepancy of kind eyes and a sharp tongue, a little innocent with all the accidental dirty jokes flying over his head, and draws the same picture of a cartoon animal on every piece of paper he can find. Jaemin, on the other hand, is all bright smiles and peppy cheer, with a bouncy walk that contrasted his perpetual dark circles and heavy eyebags, with the simplicity to be amused by anything and the ability to charm his way out of trouble. 

But most of all, they were little shits.

The first time Donghyuck introduced Mark to his friends, all three of them had stopped in the middle of their basketball game and settled on staring at Mark with probing eyes, making him _highly_ uncomfortable, until Jeno clapped his hands with a light of recognition in his eyes and pointed at Mark, exclaiming, “Oh! Your soulmate! He’s the dude who laughs at his own unfunny jokes, right?”

Mark whipped his head towards Donghyuck, who maintained an innocent look on his face. “Soulmate?”

“It was fitting.” Donghyuck shrugged.

“Didn’t you tell us about the time he forgot your last name? When you guys _literally_ have the same last name?” Renjun narrowed his eyes.

Jaemin piped up, “Wasn’t he also the guy who forgot the directions to his own house?”

Mark was glaring at Donghyuck at this point. “ _Scivey_.” 

Donghyuck laughed, hooking an arm around Mark’s as he leaned his head against his shoulder. He pointed up at Mark’s face, beaming, “C’mon, guys! I mean, sure, he’s kinda a dweeb but like. See? Look! He’s got _puppy_ eyes. I told you about the puppy eyes, didn’t I?”

Jaemin frowns. “So? What about the puppy eyes? I’ve got myopia but you don’t see the fellas cooing over that.” 

Renjun shoved his shoulder while Jeno doubled over in laughter and Donghyuck cackled in the most obnoxious way. He’s convinced that all of them had taken after Donghyuck’s certified expertise in annoying the hell out of Mark, and he prays for whatever deity out there to spiritually hold him back from unleashing wrath and fury on each and every one of them. However, Mark has grown fond of them after that, and he practically sees them every other day considering how often they tag along with Donghyuck to their outings. (Except for the playground. The playground is off-limits.)

But Mark finds that he’s felt the most at home as they explore the untreaden parts of the woodlands and venture through the cornfields and share intimate moments that the cold, mosaic city could never give him, because home had been many things but home has never been the part of the city that was neglected and rotting with ghosts. 

Mark is happy.

And come August, Donghyuck gifts him a snow globe for his sixteenth birthday. 

It was a dainty glass sphere enclosing the structure of the Sun Tower drenched in a flitter of snow over a simple wooden tableau with a small maple leaf carved into it. Mark could only stare at the miniaturized heritage building that rang bells of familiarity and home. He hasn’t seen the streets that surrounded the Sun Tower in so long. 

“I figured you’d like it,” Donghyuck shrugs, fidgeting with the ends of his sleeves. He looks unusually nervous. “It’s nowhere close to being home, but it’s close enough.”

Mark shakes the globe, watching the snow churn around before the flakes begin to gently fall. His mouth curls into a smile that makes his cheeks hurt and vision blur. He looks at Donghyuck with pure wonder shining through. “No - no it’s fine. It’s _more_ than fine it’s - I love it. Thank you, Hyuck.” 

Donghyuck blinks, taken aback at first, before he perks up in delight. Mark’s heart jumps. 

The sky was the colour of marigolds when they leave the playground. It was just another sunny day. Mark placed the snow globe back into its box and hugs it close to his chest as though it was a precious gem. Donghyuck sticks a strawberry lollipop in his mouth and hands Mark a lemon one. He smiles at the distinct taste of nostalgia.

“Hey, what do you think the sun would taste like?” Mark asks, wincing a bit from the tangy sweetness filling his mouth.

“Like a blazing, fiery, scorching ball of _death_.” 

Mark huffs, unimpressed, but Donghyuck’s sun-dappled skin steals his gaze as they walk through the shade from under the towering trees. As he watches Donghyuck roll the lollipop around in his mouth, an impulsive thought springs to mind: _maybe the sun tastes like strawberry instead._

“Uh, you okay?” Donghyuck asks when Mark chokes and ends up sputtering until his face turns red and he starts to wheeze. He turns around to shield his face, slapping a hand over his forehead as though the act would get rid of the sudden thought that unsettled his heart, leaving behind a tremor of discomfort to churn in his stomach like the flakes in the snow globe. Transparent, heavy, and gentle. 

He’s wrought with bemusement and a faint tingle of dread. Mark covers his mouth, sourness taking over the light sweetness sticking to his palate, hoping that it would overwhelm the abrupt ache he feels in his chest for the taste of the sun. He shouldn’t. The stars hiding above him warns him of the path his heart is taking and he buries it down even further than before and clamps it shut. 

“Mark?”

“I’m fine,” he clears his throat. He turns back around, slightly more composed, and Donghyuck eyes him warily before he nods. 

“Come on. Let’s ske-fucking-daddle before my mom rips me a new one for taking so long. Her patience is like Jeno’s sense of direction - nonexistent,” Donghyuck grumbles, tugging at Mark’s shirt before he hurries on without him. Mark laughs. 

As soon as they arrive at his cottage, Mark was bombarded by a bunch of warm bodies that enveloped him into a tight hug and a whirlwind of colourful voices yelling incoherently in his ear. He was squeezed so tight that he could barely breathe until Donghyuck had to pry the guys off of him except for Chenle, who still has his arms wrapped firmly around his torso with his cheek snug against his chest. “Don’t kill the birthday boy! He literally just turned sixteen, you foolish mortals.” 

“The _squishiest_ sixteen year old,” Jaemin gushes with the cloying sweet tone he _knows_ makes Mark want to punch him. He ducks underneath Jaemin’s grabby hands but ultimately fails to avoid the inevitable pinching of his cheeks, starting up a chain reaction of prompting the others to do the same. Mark endures the whole dire process of Jeno and Renjun pinching his cheeks while Jisung only shows up to give him birthday punches. Fed up, Mark wriggles his body and swats away all the hands. 

Chenle finally lets go of Mark, beaming up at him, “Happy birthday, Mark! How does it feel to be ancient?”

“Mom’s the ancient one,” Donghyuck mutters, and complains when his mother appears by the doorway and drags him into the kitchen by the ear to help her with dinner. Jisung follows after him, unamused. 

“He’s growing up so _fast_ ,” Jeno fakes a sob into his fist, squeezing his eyes shut as he turns around. 

Jaemin laments with him as he comfortingly pats his back. “I remember when he was just a wee little kid, spilling coke all over his pants in the movies and walking all the way home like he had an accident. Iconic.”

Renjun wistfully looks into the distance, a hand over his chest. “Or the time he made shitty eggs and called it rustic.”

“Oh, fuck off. That was _one_ time.” Mark smacks Renjun on the shoulder and ends up kicking at the air when Jeno and Jaemin skitter off laughing, making Mark grin.

While Mrs. Lee was bringing out the food, she turns tos Mark. “You could have brought your family over as well, Mark. There’s plenty of food to share.”

Mark smiles, unsure of how to tell her that Gramps had to look over his mother without piquing everyone else’s curiosity. “I celebrated with my grandpa yesterday, so it’s fine.”

“What about your parents?” Chenle pipes up innocently. 

Donghyuck slants Mark a glance as he brings out a pile of plates. Mark doesn’t talk about them and Donghyuck has grasped the unspoken understanding to not pry. The others, however, are clueless.

“She’s unwell,” Mark says and leaves it at that.

Donghyuck’s mother prepared an unexpected big feast much to his surprise, but nobody was complaining considering Mrs. Lee was well-known for her outstanding cooking. There was seaweed soup, grilled short ribs, lettuce wraps and radish cube kimchi, anchovies, green tea cake, as well as a bright pink ice-cream cake decorated in fancy writing that congratulated him. He couldn’t stop laughing when he saw an extra ‘r’ in his name. Donghyuck was blaming Jisung, who was blaming Chenle, who was blaming the guy at the cake shop who wasn’t paying attention to him over the phone.

“I’m so _full_ ,” Jeno groans as he rubs his stomach that was slightly protruding over his jeans.

“You gonna eat that?” Donghyuck points at the uneaten short rib on Jeno’s plate, cheeks bulging from a mouthful of green tea cake. 

“Dude, are you ever full?”

“He’s never full.” Renjun looks on with mild disgust. He’s wearing a Peppa Pig t-shirt and Mark thinks that it sums up his personality quite well. “He could eat a whole banquet of the most junkiest food ever in the entire universe to exist and he would _still_ be hungry. His stomach is a black hole and NASA’s gonna find a gravitational field in there. I called it first.”

“Hey, _hey_ ,” Donghyuck says, spittle and chunks of food flying over the plates as he points at Renjun with a bone. “You should wipe your mouth more, Renjun. There’s still a tiny bit of _bullshit_ on your lips.” 

“Donghyuck,” Mrs. Lee says, appalled. “Language!”

Jisung scrunches up his face when he dodges a chewed piece of meat from hitting his face. “Ew, hyung. Any similarity between you and a human is _purely_ coincidental.”

“Aw. Little Jisungie is so _cute_ ,” Jaemin coos, reaching over to squish his face together, but before he could touch him, Jisung dodges his hands and neatly elbows him in the side. Chenle erupts into shrill laughter and Jaemin nearly chokes on a lettuce wrap he was still in the middle of chewing. Renjun hurriedly nudges the can of sprite to his lips, though it proves to be futile when the fizzy drink ends up sending Jaemin into a coughing fit. He manages to wheeze out a, “that shit hurted, bro.”

And as Mark watches on at the zealous scene, his chest fills with the kind of warmth that could only come from swallowing the stars dipped in molten gold. 

A peculiar constellation they all were, but Mark thinks that he fits just right into their constellation, learning to glow along with the help of other stars.

❄

Winter. The most delightful yet the most dismal.

There are conflicted feelings. He’s always loved winter, but ever since he’s moved, the season leaves him feeling more ambiguous than at home, the glob of undefined emotions brimming inside of him simmering and simmering but never to a boil. It rarely snows; the sky is a perpetual lackluster grey, thick clouds gracing the heavens that hide the sun but leaves enough metallic light to illuminate the town. 

He doesn’t dream about Vancouver often. The feeling of homesickness has slowly faded over the years. But every now and then, he’d wake up in cold sweat, shivering, as the dreams of his father lingers in the corners of his eyes. He’s always tried to block out thoughts and memories of his father when he’s conscious, but he can never control what enters in his dreams. And though his father will never bother to find them, every wintry day is a reminder of home - of _him_. 

And just like every winter, Mark doesn’t sleep at all. 

He barely sleeps. At the most, he gets three hours of it, but Mark spends most of his fight fending off the crowded thoughts that keep him up at night, and trying not to avoid the face of his father appearing whenever he so as closes his eyes in the dark. 

This winter, Mark doesn’t hide it well. Doesn’t make an effort to hide it all, in all honesty. Gramps gives Mark a concerned onceover but knows better to pry, so he makes chamomile tea for him, a silent gesture of comfort in itself. On the other hand, Donghyuck is the opposite. Once Mark meets up with him after school, Donghyuck blatantly stares at Mark all bug-eyed until he blurts out, “You look like shit.” 

“Wow. Thank you for the incredibly astute observation.” 

“No, seriously. The bags under your eyes could be considered carry-ons at the airport. You look like Jaemin right now.” Donghyuck hurries after him when Mark continues on without waiting for him. “Were you up all night cramming or something?”

Mark shakes his head, stifling a yawn. “Just couldn’t sleep.”

Donghyuck hums, casting a doubtful glance at him, but doesn’t say anything. 

The sleepless nights continue.

It earns him constant worried looks whenever Mark so as trips over his own two feet because he was too tired to properly move his limbs and adopt a semblance of stability. Even Donghyuck keeps his mouth shut whenever they meet up at the playground, sending him concerned looks every now and then while choosing the words he uses carefully. Although Jaemin treats him the same, Renjun and Jeno act wary around him and everything sends Mark on edge, because the last thing he needs is for people to think they need to walk on eggshells around him. 

But one day, Renjun comes up to him after grabbing his water bottle when Mark is sitting out from the two-on-two basketball game they were all playing and says, “Warm milk.”

“Sorry?” Mark asks, confused. 

Renjun sits beside him on the asphalt ground laced with icy fractals just outside of the boundary lines. The game becomes one-on-one with the three of them after Renjun had left temporarily to get water. Renjun continues, “Almond milk, to be specific. Heat it up in a saucepan or something and maybe add honey if you’d like it to be sweeter.” 

Mark blinks slowly. It takes a minute or two for him to finally realize what Renjun is talking about. “Oh.” 

“Mhm. I make it for Jaemin every time he sleeps over - which is, like, every other day, honestly. Or you can resort to herbal medicine. My mom makes Chinese red date tea and it works most of the time for him. Come over sometime, if you want. My mom will gladly make it for you when she hears that you’re not sleeping well.” Renjun shrugs.

“Thank you,” Mark says quietly as a small smile grows on his face. He glances over to the three who were running around court, watching as Jaemin lands a three-pointer and lets out an enthusiastic cheer. Jeno groans and Donghyuck looks miffed. _Sore loser_ , Mark thinks fondly, before he looks back at Renjun. “Hey, um. About Jaemin. How come he - “

Renjun pokes his cheek. “I don’t think you get to ask that when you won’t tell us about - “ he motions at Mark’s dark eye circles, “ _this_ either.”

Mark bites his lip. “True.” 

Renjun pats him on the shoulder, sending him a fair smile, before he gets up from the ground and runs back to court, resuming their two-on-two game. 

 

 

The warm milk does help a bit. It relaxes him into a less fretful sleep, but Mark still wakes up in the middle of the night, his sleep meridian disturbed by the simple haunting of a sober ghost who seems intent in robbing him of his sleep. So Mark lays there, chest empty and head fuzzy, watching the minutes go by in an agonizing pace. When he does fall asleep again, his father is there.

 

 

Fatigue must have totaled his rationality because when his mother walks past him in the kitchen to leave the house without sparing a single look at his way, Mark finds himself gripping the handle of his cup, knuckles turning white, head pounding insistently that fills his chest with insatiable frustration that makes him blurt out, “Why does she hate me?” 

Gramps stops in the middle of writing down an answer in the crossword puzzle of the newspaper. His gaze softens into something akin to understanding rather than pity. “Mark, your mother doesn’t hate you.” 

Mark rubs a hand over his forehead, shutting his eyes. “She never looks at me anymore. She barely talks to me, but when we do, she looks at me in the same way she looks at - ” he cuts himself off and sucks in a deep breath, swallowing down the unpleasant thoughts and burying them back into the obscure depths of nowhere. His voice lowers, “Is this how it’s going to be like forever?”

“I assure you it won’t be like this forever, son,” Gramps says. “She’s trying her best. She talks about you, and cares about you. She loves you more than you can ever comprehend. But - “

“But it’s still about my dad,” Mark whispers. He purses his lips and gets up from his seat, the chair screeching as the legs skid across the floor. “Got it. I’m happy to know that she sees him in me to the point of being unable to look at her own fucking son. It’s been - what? Three, four years? And she _still_ \- ” his voice cracks. Mark clenches his fists and bites down at his tongue until he can taste blood.

“Mark,” Gramps sighs out his name, but Mark shakes his head and snatches his backpack off the floor and storms out of the house. He doesn’t even properly wear his shoes until he’s a few blocks down, and the heat in his chest consumes him whole to the point of seeing red. 

Mark presses the palms of his hands to his eyes. He hates it. He hates _feeling_ like this - helpless to the point of anger. He wants to cover the whole world in black so he doesn’t have to see it in colours of redundancy and rage. He focuses on the cold prickling his skin and the sounds around him: the whirring cars, the monotonous cacophony of the crowds, the lone chirping of an early bird somewhere to his left. But it doesn’t calm him. Rather, it sparks the anger to grow bigger, bolder, until it’s scalding hot and Mark doesn’t know how to contain it anymore. He turns sharply into an alleyway, dumps his backpack onto the ground, throws his arm back and punches the wall. 

He hesitates at the last second that spares him broken fingers, but a fierce pain shoots up his hand and arm anyway and Mark holds back a cry. He stumbles backwards and crouches down to cradle his hand, breathing heavily through gritted teeth. The pain pulsates and burns, rendering him incapable of bringing a thought to completion and he squeezes his eyes shut, feeling them sting. 

“ _Fuck_ ,” he whispers. His heart hammers in his ears. The anger immediately subsides, replaced with fear. He’s never done anything so - _violent_ before, and it scares him. Laughter from a memory taunts him in the background.

Mark doesn’t think twice when he grabs his backpack and sprints back to the house.

When Gramps opens the door, he finds Mark panting, cradling his bruised knuckles with tears welling up in his eyes. They look at each other quietly before Mark’s face crumples, and Gramps hurriedly brings him in to a hug, mindful of his injured hand while stroking the back of his head.

“I’m sorry,” Gramps whispers. 

Mark chokes out, “I don’t want to be like him.”

“You won’t.”

Mark pretends to believe him. 

Gramps tends to the wounds on his knuckles. He applies antiseptic over the abrasions after cleaning them and bandages them, before placing an ice pack over to reduce the swelling. Nothing is broken, thankfully, but Mark rejects the offer of over-the-counter pain medication. The harsh sting reels him back to reality, away from the thought of becoming his father, even if it wasn’t the healthiest way to do it.

Mark doesn’t sleep that night.

❄

When morning comes, he ends up staring up at the ceiling instead of getting ready for school.

Apprehension thrums in his veins. He had a dream about him again. Mark remembers the sound of laughter too cheerful to be genuine. And then the dream shifted. His father was a distasteful and absent man when sober. He was a nondescript puppet at home who stared at the flashing colours of the television screen. Always angry, always ungrateful, always expressing his regrets regarding his only son. 

Mark unconsciously places a hand over the left side of his ribs. Sometimes he can feel the phantom pain, and sometimes he’s left wondering what it is about him that repels - why he’s unwanted. 

Gramps comes in when it’s half past eight in the morning. He’s understanding and familiar with the rain cloud over Mark’s head, and slides the curtains open, letting the morning sunbeams stream in to lighten up the room before he leaves. Mark spends most of his day tracing nonexistent constellations across his ceiling. He texts Donghyuck, telling him that he won’t be at the playground today because he’s unwell. 

After a few hours of lying in bed, he manages to get out and stumble downstairs, where Gramps had made him a light breakfast. His mother was at the table. She asks him why he isn’t at school, but Mark doesn’t dignify her with a response. He eats clumsily with his left hand despite his lack of appetite, ignoring her lingering stare on his bandaged knuckles, and when he’s done, Gramps pulls him aside to change his dressings. Then he silently goes back up to his room. He stares at the snow globe on his night stand. Mixed feelings. 

Mark tries to sleep again, but whenever he closes his eyes, his father’s ruddy face appears before him, jostling him out of his drowsy stupor. When he does manage to fall into a restless sleep at one point, he’s awaken by a knock on the door. Gramps pokes his head in to say, “Donghyuck is here, Mark.” 

“What?” he mumbles, head still fuzzy as he sits up, wondering if he’s heard wrong. His limbs are numb and heavy from staying in bed for too long, and his knuckles ache with a fierce soreness, but it isn’t as bad as yesterday. The staleness in his mouth is unpleasant and he’s overcome with a wave of lightheadedness, and as the blurriness in his vision fades, he sees a familiar face pop in after Gramps leaves, buoyant and ever-bright. 

“Hey there, fishface,” Donghyuck greets him with a grin as he places his backpack down by his bedside, darting his eyes around his room. “Dude, your grandpa is _so_ cool. It's like I walked into an antique store downstairs! How come your room is so boring?”

Mark stares at him, laden with sleepiness and confusion, as Donghyuck makes himself comfortable in his room. “Why are you - what are you even doing _here_? How did you even know where I _live_? And - and don’t you have school?”

“It’s four o’clock, Mark,” Donghyuck deadpans, showing him his phone to prove that, indeed, it was four in the afternoon. Mark knits his brows in disbelief, unable to comprehend the fact that he’s been in bed for so long. Guilt seizes him.

Donghyuck takes a seat on the carpeted floor. “Your grandpa is a good friend of the bookstore owner near the arcade, so I asked the owner if I could have your grandpa’s landline. I got the address from him and I came here. Simple as that.”

“Why did you even go through all that trouble?” Mark mumbles, running his fingers through his bedhead to neaten his appearance with his good hand. He didn’t need Donghyuck to worry about him, or make snarky comments about his current state. He didn’t want Donghyuck to see him like this at all. But as soon as Donghyuck’s gaze lands on his bandaged hand, he immediately stills. 

“Mark, what - ” 

Mark tucks his hand back underneath his blanket. “Nothing. Just a bad day yesterday.”

Donghyuck chews on his bottom lip. “Mark. Are you okay? Like, I know you’ve never invited me over before, but you said you were unwell and I wanted to keep you company. Being sick and lonely sucks. And you’ve been acting like a zombie lately. As much as I hate to admit it, I’m like - pretty fucking worried right now. We all are.” 

“I’m - “

“Wait, don’t even answer that. We clearly have very different definitions of what ‘fine’ is.” Donghyuck scoffs. He leans his arms against the bedside, looking up at Mark with concerned eyes. “I’m serious. What’s up with you lately?”

Mark hesitates. As much as he wants to keep his mouth shut, he knows that Donghyuck won’t give up until he gets an answer he’s satisfied with. Sapped of all the energy to argue, Mark sighs, relenting. “It’s just - I, um. It’s just a bad day. Well, I guess - a bad winter.”

“What do you mean?”

Mark shrugs, gaze flickering to the bare walls enclosing him in a tight space. He’s not sure how to explain it. “Winter reminds me of home. But it also reminds me of someone we left behind in Vancouver. I - the nightmares become recurrent. Dreaming about that person makes me think about all the bad things that happened with them, and it makes me feel… not like myself, you know? And since I’m not sleeping lately, I guess I just - I’m more prone to losing my temper. And yeah,” he mumbles, lifting up his injured hand, “this happened.” 

Donghyuck listens attentively. He quietly asks, “Do you wanna talk about it?”

Mark considers the option, but he can’t bring himself to talk about it just yet. His father has always been a sensitive topic within his home, within his orbit, and having never been able to mention it with his family makes him extra careful and secretive. It’s not that he doesn’t trust Donghyuck. It’s just that there is a vacuum within his heart that has yet to be filled with answers. So, he shakes his head, and gratefully smiles when Donghyuck seems to understand. 

The thing about Donghyuck is that he doesn't sugarcoat anything. Doesn't beat around the bush. He never offers the cloying concern that gets on Mark's nerves. He just _listens_ , and Mark is grateful for that. 

“Alright, I’ll take it. But just so you know, we’re best friends for a reason, and best friends talk about _everything_ , okay?” Donghyuck zips open his backpack and rummages inside, before he takes out a strawberry-flavoured lollipop and hands it to Mark. “I don’t have any lemon ones on me, but here. Sweet things for sweeter dreams.” 

Donghyuck unwraps it for him and Mark gingerly takes it into his hands. He puts it in his mouth and tastes the sweetness of those simple words curling around his rosy cheek like the hymn of cherubs striking their golden harps. The gentle tanginess sticks to his mouth, replacing the staleness, and the gelid vestige of his unsettling dream is pushed away into a corner, weaving through the fading dust, ebbing away into nonexistence. 

“Thank you,” he murmurs. “Strawberry is my favourite too.”

Donghyuck looks at him, his eyes flickering down to his lips for a quarter of second, before he turns his head away. “Whatever. Anyways, you won’t _believe_ what happened in school today.” 

He launches into a heated tangent about the guy who sits behind him in his science class always kicking his chair, and how today Donghyuck had exacted revenge by supergluing the guy to his seat where he had to slither out of his jeans in order to escape. Consequently, Donghyuck got sent to the principal’s office and was condemned to a month’s worth of detention and cleaning duty. Mark had gotten out of bed to sit beside him on the carpeted floor to get a better look at his irked expression, their elbows and knees faintly touching. 

“Dude. You are so petty.” 

Donghyuck crosses his arms. “I’m not just petty. I’m _real_ fucking petty.” 

Mark chews on the finished lollipop stick and throws it away. They talk about everything and nothing in the lackluster space of his room. Though the walls may be plain and the lack of flair had the value of a dreamless realist, Donghyuck’s presence was enough to paint over the blankness with starlight and the last streak of sunset. Looking at Donghyuck and the stars on his cheek ignited a brief glimpse of his future, spilling the fate of the stars and his heart through a fleeting gut feeling that sounded alarms in his head and warned him of the dangers of looking too close. 

“Oh, and,” Donghyuck pinches Mark's arm, “you were talking about find a part-time job right? Well the bookstore is, in fact, hiring people. You're a nerd who likes books. Perfect fit, don't you think?”

Mark rubs his arm, frowning. “Just because I like to read doesn't mean I'm a nerd.”

“Only a nerd would deny that they're a nerd.”

“Look. If you're gonna be a smartass, you're gonna have to be smart first. Otherwise you're just a total ass.”

Mark snickers and brings his hands up to surrender when Donghyuck slaps him across the arm. Donghyuck rolls his eyes, folding his arms against his chest. His gaze roams around his half-empty room. “I know I’ve said this before, but your room is so _sad_. At least spice it up a bit. If you could paint your room, what colour would you want it to be?”

Mark thinks about it. “Pink?” He shrugs. “I like pink.”

“Guess I know what we’ll be doing next summer,” Donghyuck says, elbowing him playfully. 

Mark smiles, but doesn’t answer. 

Gramps calls them down for dinner around seven o’clock. As they step down the stairs, Mark studies how Donghyuck darts his eyes around the townhouse dripping with antiquity. Vintage rugs and imperial Chinese carpets map the wooden floor, Russian dolls and English teapots occupy one shelf and another shelf filled to the brim with old books about to fall apart. A jade vase stands over a console table and the windows are circular past the chenille curtains. Gramps enjoys collecting antiques and old trinkets to liven up the place, fitting his exact scholarly disposition. It was a complete one-eighty from Mark’s plain bedroom.

Gramps apologizes to Donghyuck for not being as great of a cook as his mother, but Donghyuck waves away the modesty and beams at the table covered in simple Korean dishes. 

“Are you kidding? All of this looks delicious. I could eat all of this!”

Mark eyes his tummy dubiously. “You sure? Look at your muffin top.” 

“Hey, shut up!” Donghyuck scoffs, wrapping his arms around his stomach protectively. “I cherish my muffin top the most. It’s cute.” 

While Donghyuck settles down in his seat and expresses his eager gratitude before digging into the food, Mark looks down at his own stomach. All the pancakes and hamburgers with extra cheese he orders from fast food places didn’t benefit his stomach much, but he pokes at the soft flesh he can feel underneath his baggy t-shirt. Amused, he pats it. Donghyuck is right. Muffin tops are cute. Donghyuck’s muffin top is definitely cuter. Gramps smiles at him and brings his bowl of rice to his lips. 

Donghyuck really does end up eating all of the dishes, eliciting a delightful reaction out of Gramps. Mark has to sit through the entire duration of the both of them talking about Mark afterwards as though he wasn’t there to listen, and while Donghyuck was in the middle of disclosing Mark’s absolute abhorrence for ketchup, he looks out the window and realizes how late it's become. Mark offers him a ride home and Gramps doesn’t mind. 

In the car, old rock songs play quietly from the radio. Three pine air fresheners hang from the rear mirror. Zelkova trees blur in the rush, their silhouettes carved from the moonlight. Donghyuck hums along to Vince Neil's energetic voice. Once they arrive at the cottage, Donghyuck taps Mark on the shoulder in the passenger seat and says, “Are you gonna be there at the playground tomorrow?”

“Yeah,” Mark says. “I'll show up tomorrow.”

Donghyuck grins. He shoots a quick “thank you!” to gramps before he gets out of the car and rushes into his home. Once he safely enters the cottage, they drive off into the distance and it was quiet again, until halfway through the drive back home, his gramps speaks up, “He's a kind young man. Ambitious as well.” Gramps slants him a quick glance, gaze soft. “You two make a very nice pair.”

Mark blinks in muted surprise. He turns to the side, heat emanating from his face down to his toes. He mumbles, “We've been friends for a long time. Since I moved here.”

“Well, I’m glad you have him as a friend, Mark.” 

He watches the moon illuminate between the gaps of the blurry trees, bright and affectionate despite being unreachable. 

“Yeah,” Mark murmurs, squashing down the fluttering warmth in his chest. “me too.”

 

 

Later that night, Mark dreams about a heart-shaped mouth pressed against his.

 

 

And it is during this winter that Mark realizes he doesn’t have to let winter be a token of his father. He can replace the old with new memories and a new reason to love the season again. He doesn’t have to deal with winter alone anymore. His father can’t get to him anymore no matter how real the dreams may seem to be.

One day, Mark will rule over the demons inhabiting the wintry skies, and he will think of everything but his father. Carpe diem; Mark himself will seize the day. Not his father.

☀

When summer comes, they paint the walls of Mark’s room a strawberry pink colour, matching the sky of the town that encourages him to call it home.

☀

When Mark drops his resume off at _Calliopean_ , he meets the owner by the name of Old Lin who was the friend of Gramps. He talks about how they met through a public book club that became narrowed down to merely just the two of them nowadays. After a short impromptu interview, he filled out an application form. His lack of experience in the workfield was generously overlooked after he expressed his willingness to learn. Later that afternoon, Mark walks out of the bookstore with a kindle of hope, and not long after, gets a call from Old Lin saying he got the job.

Gramps ruffled his hair and said he was proud of him. Donghyuck was ecstatic and bombarded him with a bunch of exclamation points in his all caps lock messages. Mark’s mother stayed quiet when he knocked on her bedroom door and spoke to her from behind it. 

The year passes by in a blur. Mark grows a few inches taller, his skin clears up from downing half a gallon of water each day, loses the baby fat, and his proportions fill in the spaces of what puberty had left. He became busier with the responsibilities that came with school and volunteer activities, work, preparing for graduation, and learning how to drive Gramps’ old camry with the hanging dread that it might break down in the middle of the road from the hiccuping engine. But one day, his counselor gives his entire grade a simple assignment, which was to fill out the question of what they wanted to do when they leave high school. 

It was probably to start revving up long-term goals and plans, but Mark finds himself stumped with the question. It was a stupid elementary school question. He didn’t have much aspirations and neither did he have any clue as to what he wanted to pursue as a career. He never gave his future much thought. Mark has focused so much in the past and in trying to get through the present, that imagining himself ten years into the future became a foreign and unreachable concept within his grasp of time. 

Underneath the peach-streaked sky, Mark makes his way to the playground. He doesn’t even know if he wants to stay in this town after he graduates if it means leaving behind the relationships he tried so hard to build again. In a way, throughout his years of living here, this town had become a home to him too. 

Arriving at the playground, he spots a familiar figure sitting at the timber ledge that framed the playground in a box. From a flurry of happy colours out of curious experimentation, his hair was now a bright cherry red, clashing against his honey-gold skin underneath the sun. The baby fat that had been hanging off his cheeks has gradually faded into a sharper jawline. But it’s hard to focus on the way he glows because when Mark approaches him within a closer proximity and Donghyuck turns his head to fully face him, Mark almost trips over his own two feet when he sees a bruise the size of a plum on his right cheek.

“What the _fuck_ happened to you?” He drops his backpack down near Donghyuck’s feet and crouches before him, tilting his chin to the side to get a better look at the bruise despite the younger’s protests. Something in his gut churns and twists at the nasty sight. 

“Mark, I’m _okay_. You can stop fussing over me and - c’mon, don’t look at me like that,” he whines, shooing Mark away. Mark relents and drops his hand, moving to sit beside him on the ledge.

“Look at you like what?”

“Like a kicked _puppy_.”

“Oh, come on. You look like you got pummeled by a lopsided steamroller.” Mark frowns. “Who did this to you?” 

At his question, Donghyuck glowers much to Mark’s surprise. “A meatheaded bigot with half a brain cell, _that’s_ who. God wasted a perfectly good asshole by putting teeth in that guy’s mouth. We were just - I was walking Jisung and Chenle home, okay? We were still outside of the school so my classmate and his dumb goons showed up when they were leaving. You should have _seen_ him feeding into his own tragically fragile masculinity by taunting the both of them because they were holding hands. Holding _hands_ , Mark! This is the twenty-first fucking century and guys like him still got more dick in his personality than in his pants and I was getting real tired of this homophobic piece of shit so I told him to shut up because his ass was jealous of the amount of shit that came out of his mouth.” 

Mark groans into his arms. Donghyuck exclaims, “ _What_? I had to let him know he was living proof that cow shit can sprout legs and walk. Then I called him a fairy for extra damage and then he punched me in the face.” He holds his chin high triumphantly, showing Mark his bruised knuckle. “I punched him back.”

Mark rubs a hand over his face. Mark’s always stayed in his own lane and moved out of trouble, but he’s heard things in the halls before; heard hurtful jokes and derogatory name calling between boys and between girls. He didn’t understand the animosity behind their actions, but it was enough to drill fear and panic into his very soul. And he doesn’t know why even though deep down, in the dormant crevices of his mind, Mark has the answer to that. “Did he look worse?”

“Oh, dude,” Donghyuck laughs, before he grimaces in pain from stretching his cheeks, “ _way_ worse.” 

Mark holds up a hand. Much to his chagrin, they high-five. “I swear to God one day that you and your stupid mouth is gonna get yourself killed.” 

“What can I say? I'm multi-talented. I can talk _and_ piss you off at the same time.”

Even though they’ve grown older, Mark feels fondness wash over him in knowing that some things never change. Donghyuck is and always will be an instigator at heart, all sharp wit and trenchant parlance, a lover of spontaneity and mischief, an embodiment of forthright courage. Mark wishes he had the same backbone, the same strength, the same openness to sharing his heart’s thoughts without fear ruling his mind. “That’s the truest thing you’ve said in your entire life, Hyuck, but still. I don’t want you to get hurt,” Mark mumbles, looking down at his fidgeting hands. “It’s not nice seeing you injured.” 

“Aw, I didn’t know you were such a softie. You're melting my heart,” Donghyuck swoons, reaching over to pinch his cheek. Mark slaps his hand away, peeved, and Donghyuck’s gaze softens around the edges, hand coming back to rest on his leg. His knuckles are bruised. Mark unconsciously glances at his own healed knuckles. The faint white scars from the abrasions are still visible. “But seriously, don’t worry ‘bout it. It’s not like I’m gonna go around picking fights with every prick I see. I can’t fight the entire town, you know.” 

His lips pull into a tight line. “Is Jisung okay? And Chenle?”

Donghyuck scoffs. “Who do you think Jisung took after from for being a smartass? And Chenle’s optimism is like a vanguard to all the shitty things in life. Of course they’re fine.”

Mark shakes his head, heaving a small smile. He gets up from the timber ledge, scooping his backpack up from the ground. “C’mon. Let’s head back to your place and ice that sucker.” 

“My mom’s gonna have a field of cows,” Donghyuck mutters, and they start walking down the familiar path well-ingrained into their memory. Mark distantly wonders if _his_ mother would care if he showed up with bruises on his face, but subsequently shakes the thought away. It was futile to think about something that wouldn’t happen. 

Faint contrails linger in the warm, blushing hues that trap his thoughts, and the invisible stars concealed all the answers that Mark needs but doesn’t want. He doesn’t realize he was making a wistful expression up at the heavens until Donghyuck points it out, to which Mark then immediately schools his face into that of indifference.

“You can’t fool me. You are literally the worst actor I know of.” Donghyuck snorts. “What’s got you looking like your minutes away from an existential crisis? Are you still freaking out over my face? Which, I know is dazzling, but you don’t have to be that concerned about it. I’m flattered, really.”

“Shut up. It’s not about your face.” Mark wrinkles his nose. 

“Then why so glum, chum?”

Mark blinks at him, wondering if Donghyuck did that on purpose for nostalgia’s sake. He sighs, scratching the back of his neck. “I’m fine. Seriously. It’s nothing bad like that shiner on your cheek. It’s just - school. Yeah.”

“Hm. And?” 

“I don’t know. It’s my last year, I’m graduating in about four months, and I still don’t know what I want to be. I haven't thought about life after high school. I just went through school hoping it’d hit me one day like an epiphany, but it never did, and I’ve never thought very highly about my future.” Mark shoves his fidgeting hands into the pockets of his jeans, trying to prevent them from moving involuntarily. As an afterthought, he adds in a murmur, “I hardly thought I’d have one.” 

Donghyuck halts, turning to face Mark. His gaze is sharp, probing, as though he was trying to peel away the layers of Mark’s pretense of stability. Mark fails to keep eye contact and ends up staring at the bruise on his cheek instead, disquieted. 

They haven’t talked about Mark’s graduation at all despite its imminency, like a big elephant in the room. 

“Adults are stupid,” Donghyuck asserts. “They think young people magically wake up one day realizing what they want to do in life, when in reality, we wake up kinda dreading the fact that we’re lost. But you know, I have a cousin who’s way older than me and he didn’t find his passion until he turned thirty, and that was photography. He went back to school. I dunno how he is now since we lost contact after my old man kicked the bucket, but I thought it was cool he pursued what he loved without caring what other people thought of him and how he was ‘too old to go back to school’.” 

At the mention of his father, Mark’s eyes widen by a fraction. He’s never heard Donghyuck mention his absent father at all until now. 

“So, it’s okay if you don’t know what you want to do right now or when you’re twenty, or twenty five, or even thirty. There’s no shame in that.” Donghyuck says. “You don’t need a dream to be happy.”

His eyes are filled to the brim with positive affirmation, gleaming in gold from the glow of the sunlight, and Mark wonders if Donghyuck was the one who harboured the sunshine when night blooms in his pocket and was the one to let the sun free when morning came. He has the quality that makes him feel so intangible and unreachable, that the warmth in his kindness he rarely admits to having pulls the strings of Mark’s heart into delicate shapes. 

He’s always wondered why he didn’t cradle dreams that foretold his future, but merely cradled the reminders of a ruddy man reeking of alcohol back in Vancouver who instilled fear in Mark’s mind, whispering the potential he has to be just like him. 

But Donghyuck is full of dreams. Always capricious and a little too whimsical to ascertain what it is that he truly wants.

“What about you?” Mark asks, voice a lot quieter than he intended it to be.

Donghyuck shrugs. He kicks at a pebble near his foot. “You know me. I’m inconsistent. Today, I thought about being an astronaut. Yesterday, I wanted to be a history professor. Same old, same old. I wish I had, like, multiple brains and limbs so I can do whatever I feel like depending on the day.” He sticks out his tongue at Mark’s disgusted face, but smiles in a way where fields of flowers would bloom in his sunshine. “My mom gives me hell for being so indecisive all the time. You know her. But even though my dreams changed everyday, you were the only one who took me seriously.” 

Blinking in surprise, Mark finds it hard to imagine someone else dismissing Donghyuck’s endless enthusiasm for all the things he aspired to be but didn’t have the time and singular fixation to commit to. But Mark had faith in him; Mark knows that Donghyuck is fully capable of anything. “It’s hard not to believe in you, Hyuck.” 

Donghyuck stares at him in the same way he had did when Mark told him about the constellation on his face, lips curling into a bashful smile. 

“Hyuck,” Mark says as they start to walk again. Since they’re already on the topic, he might as well address it. “Even though I’m graduating soon, I’d - um, like to stay here as long as I can. With you. It’d be nice if we could still be together even after high school ends.” 

Donghyuck throws an arm around his shoulder, their bodies colliding as Donghyuck knocks his head against Mark’s. His eyes are bright, his face is flushed, and he’s grinning despite the bruise on his cheek. “Idiot. I was kinda hoping you’d say that. Tell you what, man. We’ll keep each other safe from the world. We’ll be lucky people together, you and me. No matter where we end up, we'll always be best friends.”

“Agreed.” Mark returns the smile, and thinks that happy is a good look on him.

☀

The next day, Mark hands in his assignment, his answer scribbled beside the question.

_In the future, I want to be happy with my soulmate._


	3. where the sunspot lies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _maybe the sun tastes like strawberries._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw: mentions of alcoholism & abuse but nothing explicit! also the underage drinking tag applies in this chapt but it's veeery tiny
> 
> unbeta'd as always, apologies for any errors!
> 
> EDIT: here is lovely fanart by the even more lovely [grace (twt @ ramenjae) ](https://twitter.com/ramenjae/status/1069871051025182720?s=19) !!!!! it's so beautiful TT

The worst thing about senior year, Mark thinks, is the influx of parties.

He’s not a party goer, and neither is Lucas ( “Dude, me? Partying? Hell no. You gotta go to these things for the free booze _and_ food. I ain’t passing up the opportunity,” he’d said) and Lucas manages to convince him into coming to someone’s big house party. Mark has always gotten along with his classmates well enough to avoid bad blood and outlandish rumours tarnishing his name, but that doesn't mean he was friends with them enough to interact freely. 

As soon as he arrives at a duplex bungalow house, courtesy of a rich as fuck family, Mark deduces that he hates parties. Some people were dancing and a majority of them were standing around talking with drinks in their hands, but they were loud as thunder. Crowded. Hot. Terribly random. Mark didn’t enjoy being smothered against the walls, didn’t like the touch of strangers, didn’t like the thought of their sweat getting onto him and their body heat rubbing against his clothes. He didn’t like seeing people make out in front of him. It made him nervous, squirmish, and a little repelled. 

Mark is happy with merely settling in the corner of the room away from the cynosure of the party, but Lucas whisks him away before he could barely blend into the background, dragging him to a few guys donning varsity jackets and a girl with bright, red hair looking bored out of her own mind. _Tipsy,_ Mark thinks, _he’s definitely tipsy._

Lucas introduces him to the group Mark finds intimidating, because he rarely involves himself with jocks. They’re a bumbling tipsy mess of hoarse laughter and sagging jeans, voice thick with phlegm while throwing lame compliments at girl in an attempt to flirt. Her red hair reminds Mark of Donghyuck’s hair too, even though it was no longer cherry red but a soft shade of honey-caramel brown.  


Lucas was blabbering about something regarding university applications. It wasn’t until the guys in varsity jackets started to push a bottle of beer towards the girl who kept declining the offer, but they wouldn’t relent and kept persisting. She looks terribly uncomfortable and aggravated, her arms crossed tightly and lips pulled into a taut line. 

Something unpleasant bubbles up in the pit of his stomach, rising up to his chest, uncertainty lingering at his fingertips. His mouth is dry. Looking at the bottle incites a sinking feeling in his stomach, mixing in with dread and bad memories and abandoned ghosts. 

But he thinks about Donghyuck. He thinks about his unfiltered courage and how daring he is. Thinks about how proud he can make him if he learned that Mark didn’t cower. 

“Actually,” Mark laughs as nonchalantly as he can when he forces his hand to snatch the beer bottle away from the guy, “I was feeling kinda thirsty. Thanks for the offer.” He brings the bottle to his lips and guzzles it down until it was half-empty, and the bitter and malty taste lingers wretchedly in his mouth until it settles in his stomach with a burn that he didn’t know if it was from the drink itself or the fear, and the panic, and the discomfort churning heavily at the fact that he drank something he vowed to never touch at all.

Static fills his mind. 

“Mark,” he hears Lucas say in his ringing ears, “you okay?”

He blinks. The bottle is on the ground, shattered, liquid spilling into a growing puddle beneath the glass shards. Mark didn’t realize he dropped it until now. He covers his mouth with a hand. He was shaking. 

“What’s wrong?” Lucas is looking at him, oddly sobered up now. But he realizes that everyone is looking at him, and in the corner of his eye, Mark thought he saw his father looking at him too. 

“Sorry, I have to - I need to go,” Mark stammers out his jumble of words before he turns around and shoulders past the crowd. He’s out of the stuffy house where the chilly winds envelopes him in a relieving cold yet it did not get rid of the vile aftertaste in his mouth. 

He nearly trips as he sprints down the steps of the porch, and he doesn’t turn around as his legs unconsciously take him down the road. He doesn’t stop running - running from the smell of alcohol, running from the taste of the beer he wishes he could scrape out of his mouth and out of his stomach, running from the ghost of his father appearing before his eyes reminding him of what he could be. 

Mark hates it. Hates how courage can so easily be serrated by cowardice. And in that moment, a surge of anger floods him and he wants to yell at the sky about how much he hates his father, hates his mother, hates Vancouver, and how much he hates himself for being so weak. 

Fire was scorching through his lungs, legs burning with a furious ache. He didn’t stop until he felt as though he couldn’t breathe anymore. Panting, Mark leans against a mercury-vapor lamp and looks up to dart his eyes around, taking in the familiar shapes of the rickety swing set and the slide. The playground looks more abandoned in the night. He didn’t realize he had ran so ridiculously far, but his legs must have taken him to the one place that served as a sanctuary to him. 

Once he regains his breath, Mark slowly begins to tread down the familiar path that led him to the cottage.

The inside of the cottage was dark, save for the faint glow of a lamp emanating from the window on the second floor. Chewing on his bottom lip, Mark takes out his phone and sends Donghyuck a quick message: _im outside ur place rn. can u let me in? sorry._

At least two minutes pass until he hears the door unlock. Donghyuck sticks his head out, bedhead in full bloom and glasses perched crookedly on his nose, a look of disbelief scrawled over his face. “Dude. It’s like, midnight right now. Aren’t you supposed to be at a party? What are you doing here?” 

Dread has his stomach twisted into knots. Dread has his face tight like rigor mortis, his jaw clenched to the point where he can’t even open his mouth to speak. He can hear the thrumming of his own heartbeat, too aware of the clockwork of his own body that it leaves him pensive all around - beating a rhythm that reminds him of the erratic sounds that comes from a fist colliding with flesh. And when he does manage to unlock his jaw, no words come out of his hanging mouth. 

It must be written all over Mark’s expression, because Donghyuck immediately senses his clear distress. He opens the door wider, a frown on his face. “Come in first.” 

Mark forces his legs to move. He toes off his shoes, trailing after Donghyuck who tells him to be quiet since everyone else was asleep. They head up to his room. He finds a bit of comfort in the yellow walls. A video of vines was paused at full screen on his laptop. Donghyuck puts his glasses down and slips into his favourite yellow sweater before he opens his window, flashing Mark an impish smile. “Let’s talk outside on the roof.” 

Familiarity rests on his shoulders in an alleviating touch. He follows Donghyuck out onto the roof, and he reminisces the time they spent outside to stargaze as amateurs, discovering the secrets of the universe through the tiny, white dots that streaked across the night sky. Their knees touch as they sit beside each other. Donghyuck was warm. Grounding. 

“Mark,” he says. “Something happened, didn't it?” 

His voice is like gravel when he manages to speak, “It’s stupid.” 

“It’s clearly not stupid if it’s left you looking like you’ve seen a ghost.” Donghyuck says. “What upsets you is never stupid. C’mon, talk to me. You bottle things up too much, you know?” He encourages him with an elbow to his side. 

Mark slants him a glance full of hesitation. His nails dig into his palms as he squeezes his eyes shut. His father is there in the dark behind his closed eyes, taunting him, shoving a bottle to his lips. With a sharp intake of breath, he croaks, “I drank.” 

Donghyuck knits his brows. “Are you drunk?”

“No. And it was shit. I don’t know why people like it. Why they like the taste of it.”

“Then why did you drink it?” 

Mark pulls at the stray threads sticking out from the sides of his jeans. “I don’t know. There were these guys pressuring a girl to drink so I took it from them. I thought if you could punch an asshole in the face, the least I can do is take the offered drink myself so they can stop pestering her. But I - um, kinda freaked out afterwards.” 

His eyes start to sting and he promptly covers his face with his hands. The question is out of his mouth before he’s aware of it, “Do you miss your dad, Hyuck?”

There’s a stunned silence that stretches between them. Mark takes in a deep breath, starting to regret ever asking that question, when Hyuck answers him in a brave voice. “Sometimes.” 

“Sometimes?” Mark peers at him through the gaps of his fingers. 

“Well, he wasn’t the best dad, that’s for sure. Gambled a lot, was absent most of the time. But I remember this one nice memory where we built sandcastles together at the beach, and I guess some part of me misses that and wonders why it couldn’t have been like that all the time.” The tiny smile on his face is fleeting, disappearing to the stars of the souls carried over to another life. Mark bites the inside of his mouth.

“His side of the family didn’t really like us either, so after he died, they cut off all contact with us. His death is kinda why we moved here in the first place. Mom wanted a new start. She rarely wants to go back to Korea, but if she does, it’s to visit gran.” Donghyuck shrugs. “I’m happy without him. All of us are. The most happy we could be, at least. I guess I don’t talk a lot about him because he wasn’t really part of my life before when he was still alive, so why should he be part of it when he’s dead too?”

Mark purses his lips, gaze lowering to his lap. He whispers, “Sorry.”

“It’s fine. Seriously. I was just a kid when it happened. Jisung couldn’t even speak at that time. He just garbled a bunch of gibberish.” Donghyuck lightly pushes his shoulder. A ponderous silence hangs between them once more, before Donghyuck asks softly, knowingly, “What about your dad?”

His breath gets caught his chest. He’s never outrightly talked about his father before because he never liked thinking about him or remembering about him, but the more he keeps the secret of his father buried underneath layers of repressed emotions, the more his father haunts him. The more anger he feels towards him. And Mark is scared of that. He’s scared of himself. 

“We ran from him,” Mark admits to him - to the sky, to the world.

Donghyuck shifts beside him, gaining his full attention, and Mark tightly clenches his fists and shoves them underneath his legs. “When he was drunk, he wasn’t violent or anything. He was just happy.” 

He hates how much his eyes begin to sting. “He was always smiling and laughing and he’d - he’d pat me on the head, acknowledging me in his drunken stupor. He would hug my mom and tell me that I’m a good son. He was always happy. And I - and I thought, hey. Maybe the stuff he drank tasted like happiness, so when I took the beer, I guess I also wanted to know why he chose that over me.”

Mark swallows, voice wobbly. “But it was - _awful_. It tasted so bitter and gross and all I wanted to do was just taste what made him happy because I thought it’d make me happy too but all it did was make me feel worse.”

“Hey,” Donghyuck whispers, putting a hand on his knee. Warm. Always so warm. “Mark, you’re gonna be okay.”

And the dam breaks. Mark vehemently shakes his head, choking on a dry sob when he tries to get the words out that’s been buried inside him for too long. “No - _no_. When are we ever going to be _okay_? My mom, she can’t even - she can’t even _look_ at me anymore because I remind her too much of my dad. She can’t even get better without being thrown into a panic from seeing my face because I look _so much_ like him, because all it does is remind her of all the shitty things my dad’s done, and I - I don’t want to be like him, Hyuck. Even though he can’t find us or hurt us anymore, he’s still _there_. I don’t want to grow up bitter and angry and miserable and turn to drinking just to make myself numb and happy and beat my own fucking kid when I’m sober. I don’t want to be like him, Hyuck, I don’t want to be _like him_.” 

A pair of hands cradle the sides of his face, warming up his cold cheeks, and Mark grabs onto them like a lifeline. “I just don’t get why he didn’t choose _me._ Why did he choose _that_ over me? Why didn’t he want _me_?” 

Mark squeezes his eyes shut. He desperately wants the answers as to why he’s so easily disposable and so unwanted by his own family. He wants to know what made alcohol a better son than him. He can’t count the number of times he’s implored the universe to grant him the answers to his questions, but all he was met with was the heavy silence at four in the morning. 

Donghyuck lets go of his face and brings him to his shoulder even though Mark would get tears and snot all over his favourite sweater. Donghyuck wraps his arms around him tightly, burying a cheek over his head. 

“You’re not your dad, Mark, and you _never_ will be,” Donghyuck says, and Mark’s heart aches at how much fervent belief he has in his voice. “Your dad’s a coward. He’s a piece of shit, full offence, but you’re not. You’re not a coward. You have courage. You fight against your dad everyday, and that’s courage. You’re kind even though the world is not, and that’s courage.” 

Mark wipes away the snot dripping down his chin when Donghyuck brings Mark away from his shoulder to face him, his eyes afire with complete faith in his disposition. “It's his loss that he didn't choose you, because anyone would be proud to have a son like you, Mark. How could anybody not love you?”

Mark shakes his head and Donghyuck exclaims, “No, I’m serious! Even the moon has heart eyes for you. Don’t question the celestial bodies of the universe, Mark. And I swear by all the salt in me that you are _not_ going down the same path as your old man did. You know why? ‘Cause you’re Mark Lee: a clumsy fool who can’t even walk down the stairs without tripping somehow, a total nerd about books, kind of stuck-up _because_ of your love for books, can’t cook even if your very life depended on it, and you’re someone who puts all of their heart and soul into loving sincerely.”

Mark ducks his head down, sniffling. “That’s a lot of salt.”

“Exactly.” Donghyuck affirms. “Probably why I’m always eating a bunch of sweets, ya know? So I can be sweet on the inside too.”

Mark blinks in wonder at how Donghyuck could have such a lack of credence in his own kindness. “You _are_ sweet, Hyuck,” he murmurs. “You’re the sweetest person I’ve ever known.” 

Donghyuck gives a little huff of resignation. Mark’s mouth curls into an ephemeral smile, and he rubs at his tear-stained cheeks, his skin burning from the harsh friction. Donghyuck looks at him with such passionate belief in his eyes that Mark doesn’t know what to do with all that trust and hope somebody has in him. It’s startling yet stunning, to know that someone harbours such substantial faith in him. 

Mark keeps a hand pressed against his nose as he asks quietly, “Hey. Why do you believe in me so much?” 

“Because you’re my best friend, dumbass.” Donghyuck sighs and flicks at his forehead. “You’re my yellow.”

Mark stares at him in question, but before he can ask him what he means by that, Donghyuck gets up from the roof and climbs over him, telling him that he’ll be right back. He clambers back inside for a few moments before he reappears again, pulling himself back up onto the roof, and hands Mark a strawberry-flavoured lollipop and a pile of tissues.

“Dads suck,” Donghyuck states. 

Mark wipes his nose with the tissues first and blows into them, before he twirls the lollipop in between his forefinger and thumb. Something feathery tickles his chest when he puts the candy into his mouth, lips curving into a small smile at the sentiment. They were kids again, comforting each other through simple acts of sharing sweets that was the equivalent of sharing their heart. Donghyuck has always known what to do, what to say, to make Mark feel a little less bent and crooked and a lot more whole. 

“Yeah,” he whispers, reveling in the truth and comfort of such simple words. “Dads suck.”

Donghyuck quietly chuckles and slides his hand into Mark’s. Donghyuck brings their intertwined hands up to his lips and kisses the scars across Mark’s knuckles, stunning him into a silent daze. The heat lingers on his hand, spreading to his cheeks, and Donghyuck smiles at him before he tilts his head skywards. 

Mark stares at his profile with the moonlight tracing his features in a disarray. His heart beats in an echo of his. Mark knows that the world around him can change, that his body and voice can change, but what will not change is Donghyuck - because Donghyuck is the unyielding constant in his life that keeps him grounded. And he wants to keep it that way. He doesn’t want things to change between them or else the concrete world before him would collapse and Mark would be lost again.

“Hey,” he whispers, “thank you. For everything.”

Donghyuck turns his head slightly to face him, and Mark can see his bright-eyed smile full of reassurances. “Anything for you.”

Mark realizes that maybe, just maybe, he was starting to fall.

☀

Mark wakes up to a lighter heart.

Sterling sunlight spills through the curtains, dappling the yellow walls in pale gold. Mark blinks away the bleariness, eyes feeling sore from crying, and his joints are stiff from sleeping in the same position for the entire night. A soft breath tickles his cheek. Donghyuck is still fast asleep beside him, who had wheedled Mark into staying the night since it was too late for Mark to return home

Mark has never noticed how much warmer the cold can be when he’s sleeping with Donghyuck. 

He didn’t dream about his dad. At least, he doesn’t have any recollection of dreaming about him. All the murky and restrained feelings he had buried in the past had always taken form in the shape of nightmares, yet once it had escaped past his mouth and dispersed into the open for the world to hear, it’s become quieter. Calmer. 

Though there is still a tempest within him marked as untrodden territory that will never stop storming and hurting, because the pain never really goes away, Mark thinks that he no longer fears to trespass it and work through it after being in the gutter for so long because of the damage he’s taken from the crossfire of his parents. Mark never knew how freeing it felt to speak what had once been unspeakable. 

And sometimes, Mark wonders what would have happened to him if he hadn’t met Donghyuck. Would Mark end up being closer on the path to becoming like his father? Would he have been a part of those guys in the varsity jackets putting up a veil of desperate masculinity to save face? Would he have still been living, then, as a person with a heart and mind of his own and not as a tangible ghost on earth? 

Donghyuck is too good to be true. Too magical, too marvelous, too much of everything that Mark isn’t. 

Mark slowly untangles himself from Donghyuck, careful to not wake him, as he gets out of bed. He finds the alarm clock on his nightstand. It was only eight in the morning. Gramps was probably worried out of his mind. Mark quickly checks his phone that was low on battery, and finds ten unread messages from Lucas asking if he was alright and apologizing even though he had nothing to apologize for, and a few missed calls from Gramps. 

He glances at Donghyuck’s sleeping figure. He pulls the blanket up higher to cover his shoulders, and after much debate, leans forward and presses a light kiss to his bangs, before he pads out of his room. 

Mark walks down the stairs as quietly as he can, hoping to avoid disturbing the others, until he finds Jisung sitting at the kitchen table munching on a slice of avocado toast while watching a cartoon about three bear siblings on his tablet. Jisung looks up from the screen, waving nonchalantly at him as though he’s not surprised to see Mark suddenly appearing in his house. “Hi.” 

“Uh. Hey,” Mark returns the wave, albeit more awkwardly. He stands by the kitchen table, shielding his mouth with a hand when he’s aware of his morning breath. He’s going to have to brush his teeth twice to make it up. “Today’s a weekend. Why’re you up so early?”

Jisung shrugs. “I like to wake up early. Also, has anyone ever told you that your footsteps are really loud?”

“Oh.” Mark shrinks a bit. “Sorry about that. I didn’t mean to wake you up last night. Or, um. Morning.” 

“It’s okay. I can never sleep in anyways. It’s both a blessing and a curse.” Jisung points at the chair beside him. “Want toast? I can make you some.”

Mark smiles at the generous offer. He shakes his head, “It’s alright. I gotta head back home anyways. Thanks, though.”

Jisung nods. He doesn’t stop staring at Mark though, as if he was searching for something in his face. Mark squirms a bit underneath the younger boy’s scrutiny until he finally asks, “Hey. So are you and my brother official now?” 

“What?” Mark blinks, clueless. 

Jisung gapes at him. “Wait - uh, so you just? It was just a normal sleepover?”

“...Yes?” Mark answers, uncertain. “What else could it have been?”

Jisung one cringes at Mark’s reaction and quickly waves away the topic, hurriedly going back to his avocado toast. “Oh my god. Nevermind, forget I said anything. It’s the genes I share with my brother that makes me spout nonsense in the morning. Nevermind, nevermind.” 

Mark frowns, curiosity piqued but left unsolved. He supposes that since Jisung is still a growing boy, the engine of his brain goes a bit haywire sometimes. Thus, Mark writes it off as adolescent syntax confusion, and he ruffles Jisung’s hair on the way to the door as they bid farewells. 

 

 

When Mark returns to the townhouse, Gramps brings him in to a tight hug, cup of hot tea and the crumpled daily newspaper left forgotten on the kitchen table. He was warm and smelled of old parchment paper full of history, and promptly examines Mark from head to toe to inspect any injuries. “Where were you? You worried me quite a lot when you didn’t return my calls.”

“I stayed the night at Donghyuck’s,” Mark says, shifting from one foot to the other. He sees the weary lines on his grandpa’s face and guilt crawls up his throat. “I’m sorry I made you worry. I was just - caught up in things. But I’m fine. Better. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to - ”

“It’s alright, son. As long as you’re safe, then that’s alright.” Gramp shakes his head and places his hand on his shoulder, smiling, and there is a pang in Mark’s chest knowing how much Gramps genuinely cares for him. Mark is tempted to ask him about his mother and if she even noticed, but his second thoughts wipe the urge away, and Mark excuses himself so he can clean up. 

He goes to take a warm shower to scrub away the day’s lingering exhaustion. He gets out once his body starts to feel a little more like real flesh and a little less like something assembled out of barbed wire and broken glass. He dries off, letting the smoke fumigate by leaving the bathroom door open, and he lets the towel hang around his neck to catch the water droplets from the tips of his wavy hair still wet. Mark vigorously brushes his teeth twice, washes his face, and gets dressed in simple, comfy clothes. 

He walks back down the stairs, joining Gramps in the kitchen and taking a seat across from him, where a plate of buttered toast and a cup of tea waits for him. Mark smiles at Gramps. He eats quietly as he can, careful not to destroy the morning quietude, his eyes gazing towards the clear sky out the window. There are contrails streaked across the blue dome. He feels a little out of it today, a bit off-kilter. Maybe that’s what it was - being so used to blocking out the hurt that being freed from it was so foreign and unrecognizable. 

“Gramps,” Mark murmurs. Gramps looks up from the crossword puzzle of his newspaper. “Do you think I’ll be like my dad?”

Gramps is silent. He stares at Mark in a knowing manner that softened his gaze. He places his ballpoint pen down and leans forward, voice quiet and sincere. “No. Absolutely not, Mark.”

Mark nods. Gramps resumes his crossword and Mark takes another bite of his toast. He doesn’t pretend to believe him this time. 

Afterwards, he shuffles back into his room, exhaustion wearing down on his bones. With half of his face smothered by his pillow, he stares at the soft bright pink of his walls. 

When he thinks about it, his whole world has changed, where once it had been monochromatic is now filled to the brim with vibrant colours: bright yellows, nostalgic pinks, and cherry red; where once he had been hesitant to become attached to a room, leaving it barren, is now colourful and decorated in the things Donghyuck had given him. The snow globe on his nightstand reminds him of a past home and a past life. 

Mark is no longer eleven years old, bearing the brunt of the anger belonging to a man who’s given up on his family. Mark is no longer the kid holding onto his mother’s hand tightly as they walk down a deadbeat neighborhood. Mark is now a young man who is still healing, still learning how to grasp onto the wispy threads of hope, while unlearning the viciousness of an environment that’s tied him down and still fighting against his father’s ghost. 

And Mark knows that it never really stops. The pain, the doubt, the fears, the nightmares. It doesn't stop hurting, doesn’t go away forever - he would just keep living and eventually things would get pushed into the background so it’s not consuming him every day. 

But he isn’t alone anymore. Though things have been tough, Mark thinks he’s come out as a tougher person. 

Mark has hope that one day, he'll truly be okay.

☀

Donghyuck opens up a bit more about his dad too.

It's strange how they've been best friends for more than five years yet this is the first time they've talked about the unspoken. But it’s like they've exchanged pieces of their heart to fit into their own, sharing secrets and cracked dreams and a burrowed contempt for their shitty fathers that complete the missing shard to their mutual trust. 

It's nice how merely listening and understanding is the only comforting gesture they need. Something between them changes, and Mark thinks it's the uninhibited openness to vulnerability. 

Gramps goes through the attic one day, pulling out dusty photo albums left forgotten. He cleans the albums and puts them into a neat pile in the living room, and when Mark comes back with Donghyuck in tow who insisted on coming, they spend the rest of their Friday afternoon looking through old family photos. 

“Dude,” Donghyuck laughs, pointing at a photo of a young man smiling into the camera with neat, comma-parted hair and round glasses. A woman of the same age stands beside him, grinning, moon-faced with permed hair. “Your gramps is _still_ so cool, even with that hideous plaid shirt. Is that your gran?” 

Mark smiles a bit. His grandparents looked happy young. “Yeah. I guess so.”

His mother comes down from her room at one point. Donghyuck cheerfully greets her, to which she reciprocates the greeting in a more subdued manner. Mark doesn't look up at all. He ignores the glance Donghyuck shoots him. 

She's fixing herself something to drink in the kitchen as they flip through the next few pages. Mark sees younger photos of his mother, bright-eyed and happy, with a few time skips in between. But as soon as he flips to the next page, he spots a wedding photo. 

“Oh.” Donghyuck leans forward, and if he notices the way Mark stills, he doesn't say anything about it. “That's your mom and dad? At their wedding day?”

Mark swallows tightly. He didn’t know any photos of them before the current time had existed at all. He’s never seen them. Never thought about them. Photos were scarcely kept back in Vancouver, and Mark finds himself at a loss of words. He can barely recognize his father in the photo because of how different he looks - more youthful and less jaded and bitter. What strikes him as completely unfathomable is the fact that his father was smiling in the photo. So was his mother. They looked happy.

Mark wonders what changed.

Donghyuck hums in thought, examining the photo at a much closer angle. Then he looks up at Mark, studying him in the same way before Donghyuck opens his mouth and his voice is clear, assured, loud - louder than necessary when he proclaims, “How strange. You don’t look like your dad at all.” 

Donghyuck looks at him with a challenge in his eyes, as though he dares Mark to disagree with him or to refute with something self-deprecating, to which Mark is sure Donghyuck knows him well enough to predict. But Mark keeps his mouth shut, too stunned to genuinely react. 

He’s suddenly aware of how quiet the house has become - where the clinking of earthenware in the kitchen has descended into complete silence. When his mother walks out of the kitchen and past them, empty-handed, Donghyuck is staring at her with a certain resolve in his gaze and something finally clicks in Mark’s brain.

“You didn’t have to do that,” Mark mumbles, pointedly staring down at his lap.

“What? I was just stating a fact.” Donghyuck shrugs. He looks back at the photo, voice softening. “And I meant what I said.” 

His chest loosens from its tightly coiled apprehension into gradual quietness and comfort. No matter what, Donghyuck is always there standing firm, reassuring, and kind; though he makes Mark’s heartbeat stutter and mind a jumbled mess at times, at most he also brings Mark at peace, because that is the dual effect Donghyuck’s presence has on him - calm yet heightened. The summer in his winter. 

Donghyuck must have noticed the pellucid surprise in his reaction. He harrumphs and lightly shoves at Mark’s shoulder, rolling his eyes. “Don’t go all touchy-feely on me now, fart blossom. You don’t gotta say it for me to know.” 

Mark smiles, shaking his head. He shoves him back, “Your variety of innovative insults is astounding.” 

“It’s tough being a genius.” 

Mark laughs. Donghyuck demands him to stop laughing, but Mark laughs even harder.

 

 

Later that night, Mark runs a finger over his faintly scarred knuckles, the warmth of Donghyuck’s lips still lingering across his skin. He brings his knuckles gently to his mouth, and closes his eyes.

☀

He finds his mother sitting outside on the porch of their backyard one night.

He had gone down to the kitchen to get a glass of water for his parched throat after waking up in the middle of the night, but had found the door to the back open with the light on. He sees his mother’s silhouette; she was looking down at something in her lap, quiet and in a daze. Mark knows better than to interact with her, but the instinctive concern sparks up the dormant bravery within him that prompts him to set his cup down and approach her. Mark makes sure his footsteps are heard, so that he doesn’t scare his mother by creeping up on her.

If she hears him, she doesn’t make a sign of noticing him. Rather, as he comes nearer, he realizes that one of the photo albums is on her lap. His heartbeat quickens in realization and he hurries towards her. 

“Mom,” he says urgently, grabbing the photo album. “What are you doing? You shouldn’t - “

“No, no. It’s alright.” She shakes her head. Mark immediately lets go, finding that she’s looking at him with unease and discomfort in her eyes, but she’s not turning away from him in fear or panic. She’s looking at him. She’s _seeing_ him again. Mark takes a step back, afraid that being too close to her will disrupt that kind of stability, but she shakes her head again. 

After a moment of hesitation, Mark tentatively does so, fiddling with his hair. He glances over to the album. She’s on the page with the wedding photo. Mark studies her countenance, weary and ashen, yet missing the numbness she’s always had in her eyes. Though her hands quiver, she runs a finger over the face of his father on the laminated photo, glinting from the yellow light of the porch and the messy scribble of the moonlight.

“I remember this day well. To think we'd made vows to love each ‘til death do us part. Silly now, isn't it?” A contemplative silence falls over them. “Your friend is right.” She glances at him, a remorseful smile on her face. “You don’t look like your father after all.”

Mark stiffens. 

Her voice is brittle. “Even though he couldn’t find us anymore, I still couldn’t - I was still _scared_. I saw him _everywhere_. In my dreams, at the end of the hallway, on a stranger’s face, on _yours_ , just - _everywhere_. I couldn’t take care of you, and I - all I wanted for you was to have a happy family, Mark. But I failed as a mother, haven’t I?” She shakes her head, covering her mouth. “I’m so - sorry. I’m so sorry.”

His heart thuds loudly in his ears. A knot is in his throat. The muscles of his chin tremble like a small child and he looks up at the moon as though it could soothe him. But when he glances towards his mother, he is brought back to the time how her sobs punched through the bathroom walls, ripping through her muscles, bones, and guts; how he could only helplessly stand there, mind filled with static from constant fear. 

Even if he harboured anger and injustice towards her and the world burned down from exhaustion, he could never hate her. His mother has always been a monument of strength in his eyes as a child. And she still is. She was the one who protected him from his father. She was the one who brought him to this town after years of trying to appease the bastard she was stuck with. She was the one who held his hand all the way through even if she hadn’t been able to hold his hand afterwards.

And in the end, Mark learns that he had been too caught up in his own hurt that he’s forgotten how much pain his mother must have been in too. 

“Does it work?” He asks thickly. His mother looks at him with glossy eyes that show no understanding. “Does therapy work?” 

She glances down at the photo, her voice a whisper. “Yes.”

“Do you still see him?”

A longer silence hangs between them. Then his mother looks at him directly in the eye and says, “No. Sometimes, I - dream of him. But he no longer has possession over my life.”

“Then that's okay,” he says quietly, and the knot in his throat tightens. “It's okay that you couldn't take care of me or look at me after what happened, because you got better, didn't you? So - it's okay. I'm okay. I'm - “ He brings his hands to his face and hides his crumpled expression. “You didn't fail at all, Mom. I'm happy. I'm _happy_ here.”

And then there are arms wrapped around him and the side of his face is pressed against her chest. Mark doesn't realize how much he’s missed the warm touch of his mother. He feels like he’s gone back in time and he was ten years old again, his mother cradling him in her arms underneath the drab slab of the dull moonlight. His chest aches with relieved longing. 

“I'm so sorry,” she whispers into his hair. 

His mother holds him tighter, and finally, he squeezes his eyes shut and hugs her back. 

They stay there for a while. Mark doesn't keep track of time. He's staining the front of his mother’s shirt with his tears and snot. She's warm. Always has been. And when the glow of dawn begins to diffuse across the sky, his mother finally lets go. She cradles the side of his face, brushing a thumb over the skin beneath his eye. 

“You've grown up well, Mark,” she murmurs.“I'm glad.”

Mark thinks about Donghyuck and his ever-present courage and resilience, his grandpa who shares wisdom like candy, his mother who brought him into a new world, and the prismatic souls of his friends who add a new shade of colour into his everyday life, a reminder of how life is worth living until the end to see through what the universe has in store for him. 

“Yeah.” Mark smiles, tiny but sincere. “I've got a good family to thank for that.”

☀

Big things are slowly changing.

His mother talks to him more when she's able to. Mark doesn't expect things to immediately change, as if a midnight conversation was enough to mend things, but he sees the effort she puts into smiling at him and asking about school. There are more good days than bad days, though the latter is still more prominent, but she spends more time outside nowadays and tending to their mess of a backyard. His mother has healed after years of therapy and counselling, and is still continuing to heal. And Mark has hope that she'll be okay too, one day.

Baby steps. Slowly, but surely, they will get there. 

And though change surrounds him, Mark doesn’t exactly notice the change within himself until one day, Donghyuck indirectly makes him. 

At school, Mark garners subdued attention from his classmates after the night at the party. Other than Lucas being an understanding and kind soul who slobbers affection all over him on a good day that Mark lets him, the rest of Mark's classmates now know him as the guy who freaked out after one measly sip of alcohol. All his efforts of slipping under the radar all these years have gone to waste. Mark was frankly disappointed in himself. 

On the bright side, Mark makes a new friend.

It's the girl he took the offered drink for, with the bright red-dyed hair. She approached him during their shared English class and introduced herself as Yerim. When she brings up 1Q84, Mark immediately approves of her when she rolls her eyes and rants about how much she hates that book. Needless to say, they end up getting along pretty well.

That’s how Donghyuck ends up peering at him weirdly when he notices Mark smiling down at his phone when all of them are hanging out at his place after school. Jeno was trying to balance a pencil on his nose and failing miserably at it, Jaemin was half-asleep on the floor, and Renjun was the only productive one who was diligently finishing his homework. 

“You look like you're planning a conspiracy for secret world domination,” Donghyuck comments, putting his gaming console down. “Why are you smiling like a goof at your phone?”

Mark rolls his eyes. “You know you'd be in on it if I was planning that, Hyuck. Unfortunately, the time for that has yet to come. I'm just texting a friend. She's making witty commentary about The Handmaid's Tale, and it's great.”

“Ooooh,” Jeno swivels on his chair, the poor pencil dropping onto the floor as he faces Mark with a grin. “A _she_? Do I hear a girlfriend?”

Jaemin jerks awake. “I heard the word ‘girlfriend’.”

Mark sighs in exasperation. He glances at Donghyuck for help, but finds a thoughtful but unreadable expression on his face instead.

“Because _God_ _forbid_ girls and guys can't be friends,” Renjun grumbles, his tone dripping with sarcasm. 

“I'm just saying. No dude smiles like an - and I quote - ‘a goof’ from talking to a girl.”

“You've barely talked to any girls, Jeno.”

Jeno picks up the pencil and throws it at Donghyuck. “Shut up, you ass.” 

Donghyuck snorts. After much contemplation, Jeno sits up more alert. “Actually, now that we're on the topic, we’ve _never_ talked about girls and guys ever. Or dating. Or anything about relationships. Are we all just sad and undateable or late bloomers?”

“You don’t need to be in a relationship to be happy,” Renjun remarks, unamused.

“Well, of course I know that. I’m just _saying_.”

Mark scrunches up his face. Being in a relationship has always been the least of his worries. He’s never thought about being together with someone. Mark is simply fine with Donghyuck, his friends, his grandpa, and Old Lin who likes to buy him Oreos when he has a late shift. He fiddles with the ends of his hair, suddenly uncomfortable with the topic of their conversation. 

“Majority of the girls here are a little too prissy for my preference and all the boys here are complete assholes who’ll probably backstab you ‘cause they can't handle _the_ gay feelings. So, no thank you.” Jaemin tilts his head in thought. “I mean, except you guys. You're all decent, but I wouldn't wanna smash. Gross.” 

Renjun covers his ears while Jeno cackles. Donghyuck, on the other hand, cringes and says, “Please don't mention us and the word ‘smash’ in the same sentence ever again, Nana.”

Jaemin grins, smug. Mark thinks he's gotten out of the spotlight until Jeno turns his attention back on him and pokes at the question he had asked left unanswered. “So? Do you like her?”

“We _literally_ just met two days ago. Can’t you just chill? She's just a friend. No, _seriously_ ,” Mark stresses when he hears a litany of unbelieving scoffs. “I don't like her like that. We just bond over bad literature. Guys, come on.” Aggravation bubbles up in his chest when no one seems to believe him. He doesn't know why he wants to avoid any misunderstandings about this so badly, but it eats at him to the point of him blurting out, “She's not the one I like.”

Silence. Mark grits his teeth, cursing at himself, and Donghyuck is staring at him. “So you _do_ have someone you like?”

“Who is it?” Jeno raises his brows. 

A sudden thought of strawberry lollipops takes over his mind. “No one,” Mark says weakly. 

“I can’t believe we’ve regressed back to prepubescent children with this talk,” Renjun mutters.

Donghyuck frowns. “How come you've never told me about this, Mark? I've never heard about you liking someone at all.” He looks a bit hurt, and Mark quenches down the queasy feeling in his stomach. 

“I’m - “

“Do we know the person? Can you give us a hint?” Jeno eagerly presses. 

It was a just a lie to get you off my back, Mark thinks. It’s just a lie. A big lie. But he’s not sure why it doesn’t feel like one. 

“When did it start?” Donghyuck supplies. 

“Oh, I know! Is it someone in this room?” Jeno laughs, and winces when Renjun smacks him on the shoulder. Renjun is telling Jeno to shut up and Jaemin is unusually quiet. 

Mark swallows loudly, and Donghyuck is looking at him with an intent gaze, brimming with something indecipherable that makes his stomach churn. But most of all, he doesn't expect Donghyuck to snap at him. “Mark, come on. Don't be such a fucking pussy.”

Mark stares at him, wide-eyed. Even Donghyuck was startled by his own harsh words that sent a pang to Mark’s chest, reminiscent of a needle piercing through his heart at every beat, and the room became silent and thick with tension. Mark forces himself to look away from Donghyuck’s guilty expression and finally leaps up to his feet, shoving his deserted books into his backpack. “You guys are pissing me off. I have to go.” 

“Mark,” he hears Donghyuck call after him, but Mark is already out of the room and thundering down the stairs in a heat of annoyance. He passes by Jisung whom Mark didn’t have the heart to ignore when the younger boy greets him, and Mark ends up replying with a half-hearted smile and wave, before leaving the cottage. 

Mark doesn’t look back. He walks down the road in a brisk pace, feet hitting the puddles that soaked the inside of his shoes, shoulders stiff and hands clenched tightly as the sun beamed down on him in a bright collision of early evening. And he’s confused as to why his heart had been beating so fast, pounding in his ears like an onslaught of hail, his chest scorching with something uncontainable. He doesn’t know why he got so irritated over such a trivial matter. He doesn't know why _Donghyuck_ got so irritated, and it makes him confused and upset. 

Most of all, Mark doesn’t know why the image of Donghyuck smiling had appeared before his eyes when Jeno had asked him who it is that he likes. 

Mark doesn’t know a lot of things. And maybe, just maybe, it’s because he runs from them.

☀

Mark promptly avoids Donghyuck and the others for the next few days. Not because he’s angry, per se - perhaps more so hurt and mostly annoyed - but he needs time for himself to think and try to understand the significance behind thinking about his own best friend when Jeno asked him that question. And deep down in his subconscious, Mark knows what it means - yet simultaneously he’s pushing everything back down, because denial will always overrule self-acceptance at any given day.

It feels as though his heart and mind were enemies, battling against each other in a war. 

“You look like you’re mad,” Lucas comments. 

“I’m not mad,” Mark says.

Lucas exchanges a glance with Yerim, to which she crosses her arms and says, “You’re definitely mad.” 

Mark sighs. They’re walking down the crowded hallway of the second floor after school had ended. “I’m not mad. I’m just - I don’t know. It bugs me when people can’t accept the concept that guys and girls can be friends without pushing the heteronormative narrative onto them. I mean,” he motions at the space between him and Yerim. Lucas looks at him strangely as Mark continues, “just because we rant about bad literature doesn’t mean we like each other in that kind of way. Why can’t people understand that?”

“Someone thinks we like each other already?” Yerim grimaces. “You’re shy and nice and cute and all, Mark, but you know what would make people drop that kind of thought? Tell them that Kim Yerim is a very big lesbian.”

Mark chokes on his own spit and Lucas almost walks right into an opened locker. Mark gapes at her. “ _What_?”

Yerim grins, visibly satisfied with their reactions. “Surprise.” 

“Bro,” Lucas says, in awe. “you’re a total badass. I love you.” 

“Love you too. No hetero,” Yerim replies, and the both of them erupt into high-pitched giggles before high-fiving. Mark watches them with a bug-eyed expression, making the both of them laugh even harder.

At the end of the hallway, they part ways since the three of them lived in different directions. Mark thinks back to how Yerim seemed highly uninterested in the guys crowding around her at the party, and how she brushed off her male classmates trying to make a move on her. It explains quite a lot, now that Mark thinks about it. He wonders if Yerim has a girl who she likes too. 

Mark makes his way out of the school and catches the bus that’ll take him home. His eyes are glued outside of the window, the thick grey clouds rolling across the gloomy sky as though it was on the verge of raining. The weatherman had mentioned it would rain later in the afternoon; hopefully Mark can reach the house before it does.

And as soon as he gets off and heads to the townhouse down a couple blocks, he notices a familiar figure sitting at his doorstep, intently pressing at his game console. He recognizes the curly hair in the colour of honey. Mark debates whether or not to act aloof, hide in the bushes until Donghyuck gives up and goes home, or give in to forgiveness. 

Mark finds that the second option is a much more gratifying idea, so he discreetly sneaks onto the front yard of one of his neighbors across from his townhouse and nestles himself behind the bushes, peeking his eyes over the hedge to continue to survey Donghyuck from afar. Donghyuck seems too occupied with his game to notice Mark spying on him. 

He tries not to flush whenever someone walks past him with a leer at his odd behaviour. He doesn’t know how much time has passed, but when he feels something wet hit him right on the forehead, Mark pauses. Another drop. Mark looks up and realizes that it’s starting to rain. 

It starts out as a light shower at first, but then the clouds become darker, bleaker, and the rain gradually becomes a lot more ruthless that leaves Mark fumbling for his umbrella in his backpack. Fortunately, he thought ahead of the weather and opens it to shield himself from being pelted with rain, but then he sees Donghyuck sticking close to the door as much as he can to fit himself underneath the small awning that barely covered his legs. He’s shoving his game console underneath his sweater as first priority because of course he would, but Donghyuck doesn’t seem to be intent on leaving any time soon and Mark throws his unoccupied hand up in the air. “Are you _serious_?” 

After all these years, he can still never hold a damn grudge. 

With a defeated sigh, Mark gets up from the bushes. He crosses the street after vigilant inspection and hurriedly approaches Donghyuck, covering him with his umbrella as he asks, “I thought _I_ was supposed to be the idiot out of the two of us, Hyuck.”

Donghyuck whips his head up, expression turning sour. “You were here all this _time_ , you jerk?” 

“Hey, in my defense, I was hoping you’d leave especially when it started to rain.” Mark frowns. He spares a glance around him, the rain hitting the ground with immense strength like thunderclaps. “Let’s just go inside first.”

Donghyuck blocks the doorway when Mark tries to reach for the knob. “Um, excuse me. Since you were _so_ content on just watching me wait for you, we might as well just talk out here, Mark.”

“But it’s raining!”

“And you have an umbrella. Problem solved, next!”

Mark scowls, but throws his head back in defeat. He sits down on the step beside Donghyuck, ignoring the fact that his pants were going to get indecently wet, but he keeps his umbrella over them. Donghyuck scoots closer to him until their shoulders touched.

“What were you even doing here?” Mark grumbles. “Didn’t you have school or something?”

Donghyuck shrugs. “I skipped my last class.” 

Mark’s eyes bulges. “You _what_?”

“It’s not like I _learn_ anything in business management. We just fool around in the computer lab,” Donghyuck says, waving his hand flippantly. He puts his game console back into his backpack, the delayed silence hanging between them filled with white noise from the rain. There is a certain awkwardness to Donghyuck’s demeanor, his shoulders unusually tense, and Mark watches in amusement as Donghyuck’s mouth opens and closes indecisively. 

“And it’s because I wanted to catch you before anything else.“ He finally says as he rubs the back of his neck. “I wanted to say I’m sorry.”

Mark blinks. Blinks again. Then he gapes, “Sorry, _what_?”

“Don’t pretend you didn’t hear me, Mark.”

Mark is baffled. “Dude, I literally cannot believe my own ears. I _swear_ I heard you wrong or something.”

Donghyuck groans in frustration. He raises his voice so that he can speak over the cacophony of the rain, “I said I’m _sorry_ , you asshole!” 

It would have been a perfect apology if Donghyuck had omitted the last part, but Mark will take what he can get. Donghyuck continues on, frustration seeping away into something more subdued. “I acted like a jerk and I shouldn’t have snapped at you like that. I wasn’t - I guess I was just - I don’t know. Upset you kept it from me, and I know it was irrational of me. But if it makes you feel any better, Renjun gave me and Jeno a whole earful about being disrespectful to your boundaries. Sometimes I think he’s more of a devil than I am.”

“Nah. I think you take the cake for being the devil,” Mark laughs softly. He nudges his shoulder, a resigned smile on his face. “It’s okay, Hyuckie. You know that I can never hold a grudge even if my life depended on it. I was just surprised. I appreciate your apology a lot.”

“Softie,” Donghyuck mumbles. Mark shrugs, and a smile flutters across Donghyuck’s lips, before his smile turns mischievous. “So. _Who_ do you like?” 

He complains when Mark throws his head back and slants him a half-hearted glare. “What? I’m your best friend! You can’t keep this shit from me! I have best friend privileges, and that includes me deserving to know these kind of things. C’mon now. Tell your beautiful and amazing best friend about your love interest.” He wiggles his eyebrows and leans his head on his shoulder, blinking rapidly up at him with an enticing smile. 

“I don’t - it was just a lie to get you guys to shut up. I don’t actually like anyone. And for the record, if I _did_ like someone, of course I’d tell you first. Stupid.”

“Oh.” Donghyuck hums, laden with embarrassment but mostly disappointment, though his eyes seem to be the opposite of it. “Figures. You’re too much of a dweeb to like anyone. You only like your books.”

“No I _don’t_ ,” Mark protests, affronted, while locking an arm around Donghyuck’s neck. He drops the umbrella to knuckle the top of Donghyuck’s head before he can escape his wrath, and the rain pivots onto them in an unruly cascade from the wind, soaking their hair and clothes. “Take that back, butt nugget.” 

“Make me, dingleberry.”

“Pissy McHissyfit.” 

“Wank toaster!” 

Mark lets go of him, wrinkling his nose. “What the _hell_ is a wank toaster?”

Donghyuck laughs, and his laughter radiates outwards into the streets. There was no soft gradual build up; his laugh was unapologetically hearty at the start that sounded like the explosion of stars and demanded the entire earth to fall on its knees to the sound of it. Mark sits there, lips twitching to the sound of his contagious laughter and an unexpected warmth rushes through him, leaving him entranced. 

Drops of rain threads through the strands of Donghyuck’s hair, darkening it in gold, trickling down the curve of his nose, the shape of his jaw, the cupids bow of his lips, and Ursa Minor on his sun kissed skin. He’s deluged by the rain at every passing second but Donghyuck doesn’t seem to care; he’s grinning at Mark with eyes inhabited by a cluster of stars. It feels as though the sun hiding behind the clouds has replaced Mark’s heart, pumping flames instead of blood, and something inside of him quivers and shakes and cracks. He tries to push it all back down because this isn’t what he’s supposed to feel like towards his best friend.

But. 

Mark feels like he’s fourteen years old again, sitting on the rooftop stargazing with his best friend and finding Ursa Minor on his cheek, his heart beating in an unsteady number that warned him in the first place of how things were changing. And Mark should have known the moment a certain kind of warmth he can only feel around Donghyuck floods his chest, wrapping around his heart, making the wilted flowers bloom into something delicate and gentle, that things have _already_ changed even if he didn’t want them to. 

The vultures in his stomach and the magpies in his chest unfurls, no longer repressed and buried underneath mountains of denial that crumble down like fine china, and the universe opens up and whispers to him its secrets. 

Mark is merely seventeen years old when he comes to a quiet, heavy realization. 

“Mark?” Donghyuck waves a hand at his face. “You still there? You’ve been staring at me for, like. Three minutes max. Are you, perhaps, admiring my beauty?” 

He blinks, still a bit mystified that entices him to answer with a quiet, “Yeah.”

The colour on Donghyuck’s cheeks darken as his eyes widen by a fraction in surprise at Mark’s unexpected honesty. “Oh, um. Oh. Uh? Okay? I, uh - _wow_ , look at the time.” He springs to his feet, flustered, while he rolls up the sleeve of his shirt to check the time on his nonexistent watch. “I gotta head back and do my homework and be a hardworking, conscientious student, because that’s who I am.” He bends down and snatches the umbrella up and over his head, grinning. “Thanks for the umbrella, Mark. See you later!”

Mark watches the figure of his back recede into the distance, and belatedly whispers, “See you later.” 

He sucks in a deep breath. The first instinct that seizes him is to run. Run from his feelings, run from Donghyuck, run from anyone and everyone that can remind him of it. There was only so much his heart can handle, only so much weight of confusion that can drown him in large tides - because what if he was mixing this feeling with a deep level of admiration instead of something romantic? 

But Mark can’t help but gravitate towards Donghyuck like a stellar collision. His feelings are massive and so terrifying, yet peaceful and quiet at the same time - a bunch of contradictions that mirror Donghyuck’s nature. Even though Mark doesn’t know what to do with his discovered feelings, he doesn’t care if he can’t share it to the world. He’s happy with merely being friends. He doesn’t want to ruin what they already have. He doesn’t want change to ruin the nature of their relationship. 

And most of all, Mark doesn't want to lose _him_ \- his morning star, his constant, his starlight and sunflower.

☀

But he supposes that despite all of his friends’ endearingly aggravating qualities, at least one of them had to be the most eerily perceptive out of the others.

Jeno pulls Mark into a bear hug as he apologizes in a terribly overdramatic but genuinely remorseful manner. Donghyuck records the whole thing on his phone. When he sees Renjun’s approving nod, he assumes it’s the work of the half-devil and half-angel inspiring respectable moral integrity into his friends. 

It’s a little painful considering Mark doesn’t fare well with cheesy skinship, but Mark does feel bad for blowing a small fuse, and he’s always had a soft spot for his dream team. Plus, it was nice to see their faces after he told them about Yerim.

Mark tries to act normal, tries to drown himself in work and anything that’ll tire him out and make him stop thinking about Donghyuck - the reason as of late as to why he can barely sleep a wink, but he’s also a terrible actor who cannot - for the love of God - maintain his usual disposition around Donghyuck. 

Mark is always jumpy around him, face heating up whenever Donghyuck so as brushes a hand over his, and is constantly wrought with intense adoration from one occasion to being irrationally scared and uncomfortable the next. Mark tries his utmost best, but there is something so monumentally unsettling and scary about having feelings for your best friend. 

He doesn’t know when it started, when he began to feel differently for Donghyuck. Maybe from the moment they first met, or maybe the time Mark found him beautiful underneath the summer sun, or the time he thought about how the sun would taste like strawberries. He hasn’t realized it until now and it’s all coming at him in full force without clemency. 

Mark is walking back home, having left the arcade early with the excuse of graduation jitters and preparations after Donghyuck had played with the back of his neck for the umpteenth time that sent him stumbling over his chair on the way out. He purposely pretended to not notice the hurt flash across Donghyuck’s face, even if guilt stubbornly ate at Mark from the inside out. He wishes silently for death when he hears a familiar voice call after him. 

Mark pauses his speed-walking, letting Jaemin catch up to him. Confused, he asks, “What’re you doing?”

“I’m leaving with you,” Jaemin smiles, catching his breath. 

“Don’t you live, like, on the opposite side of town?”

“Yup.”

“Then why - “

“Man, I’m really thirsty! Let’s go get a drink first.” Jaemin tugs at his arm and leads the way to the crosswalk, diverting his plan of heading home. Mark lets himself be dragged, too curious and suspicious to let this sudden one-on-one initiation between the two of them off the hook.

They end up at a bubble tea shop nestled in between a clothing boutique and a closed down thrift store. The place reminds Mark of all the bubble tea shops lining down the road of Fraser Street back in Vancouver, full of convenient little drink shops for students from the high school nearby to head to after they’re let off from class. It’s not wistfulness that he feels, but neither is it complete indifference.

Jaemin buys himself a honey milk tea sans pearls. He lets Mark take a sip, and its mildly sweet taste prances pleasantly in his mouth. When they head back outside, a peaceful quiet settles between them. The sun is shy today, peeking out through the clouds. It’s getting hotter lately, indicating the arrival of summer, which also meant his graduation was approaching soon. Time whisks past him in quiet flight. 

They leave the crowded part of town and enter a quieter road, the grassfield surrounding the sidewalks aligned with hornbeam and zelkova trees. 

“You know,” Jaemin finally speaks up in a nonchalant manner, the straw of his drink pressed to his mouth. “There’s nothing to be ashamed of.”

Mark furrows his brows. “Ashamed of what?”

Jaemin looks at him. His gaze is sharp and quiet and it raises goosebumps on Mark’s arms. And when he speaks again, his voice is softer, as though he was sharing a secret only they and the universe knew of. “Of being in love with Donghyuck.”

Mark jerks to a stop. Words leave him. Something in him unwinds. As if he was stuck underwater, everything was slow and warbled. Fear prickles at his chest and trepidation claws up his throat, because the thought of other people knowing that Mark is in love with another boy, let alone his best friend, makes him want to hide. Disappear.

He suddenly thinks back to the arcade, how Donghyuck had draped himself over Mark and gently rubbed the back of his neck as a mindless habit, along with the gentle and subtle touches of affection they’ve become accustomed to sharing throughout their friendship that Mark was beginning to reject. Donghyuck has always been a touchy person, but he is a warm soul whose warmth is something that Mark finds himself unconsciously seeking for. 

But then he remembers the curious look Jaemin had shot towards them multiple times - searching, discovering, _understanding._

He’s seen through Mark.

Mark remembers how to breathe once Jaemin places a hand on his shoulder, jostling him out of his own thoughts. Jaemin is speaking to him, his voice becoming clearer in his buzzing ears, “--okay? 

“What?” Mark mutters, forcing his hands to unclench. 

“Are you okay?” 

“I’m not - “ he shuts his mouth before he can continue further. A denial sits at the tip of his tongue. _I’m not in love with Donghyuck,_ he desperately wanted to refute him, but it would be a lie. And Donghyuck didn’t deserve to be lied about. 

Out of all four of them, Mark didn’t expect Jaemin to be the argus-eyed one. He seemed as though he understood the bonfire of panic and confusion his heart had repeatedly avoided until recently. Swallowing down the apprehension, he croaks, “How?”

“You wear your heart on your sleeve often, even when you think you’re not,” Jaemin says, eyes brimming with light and warmth in his sincerity. He manages a tiny smile, and he _knows_. He knows when Mark doesn’t repudiate it. “You’ve been acting weird recently. Donghyuck is smart, but he isn’t very brainy when it comes to these kinda things. Neither are you, honestly, and it _kills_ me to watch you two sometimes.”

Mark blinks. He thinks back to the time Jisung had asked him if he and Donghyuck were official. It had been a strange question Mark had dismissed, but now that he thinks about it, he realizes that both Jisung and Jaemin knew how Mark felt way before Mark realized it himself. “Am I - really that see through?” he timorously asks. 

Jaemin is silent as he scans their vicinity, engrossed in his own thoughts. He lightly shakes his drink, the ice dully clinking against the plastic. “Maybe not as much. It’s probably because I catch onto things quickly. When Jeno asked you who you liked, I saw the panic all over your face. Then you looked at Donghyuckie for a split second, and everything just kind of clicked.” 

He shrugs, as though it just that easy to discern. “I always thought you two were already a thing before we met. Even though he mostly talked about how much of a dweeb you are for shit and giggles, you should have listened to him prattle on and on about how much he admires you and how really nice you are. Canadian etiquette and all.”

It surprises him to hear that Donghyuck had spoken so fondly of him. “Really?”

Jaemin nods. “I guess it’s also because I recognize the look you have for him.”

“Look?”

“Yeah.” Jaemin’s voice is airy. “You look at him as though he hung the stars in the sky.”

Mark stares at him, disbelieving and mildly alarmed, when Jaemin links their arms together and they continue walking. Mark is pulled along again. “Jaemin, you can’t - “

“I’m not gonna tell him, don’t worry. I’m not one to talk, anyways.” Jaemin slants him a reassuring smile. “Why’re you so scared?” 

Mark bites the inside of his mouth. He hesitates on telling the truth, but if he’s learned anything from expressing himself, it’s to do it with honesty to the people he knows he can confide in, and to free himself from the burden of keeping all his troubled thoughts inside until it begins to rot and eat away at him from the inside out. “It’s - he’s my best friend, Jaemin. Of course I’m scared. I don’t want to ruin our friendship if he doesn’t feel the same way. He's important to me, and I don't - “ _want him to leave me behind too._

Jaemin’s gaze softens in a glint of understanding. His gaze flickers ahead, a contemplative look taking over his face. “Isn’t it better to take that risk than leaving yourself misunderstood? You don’t want Donghyuck to think you hate him or anything, do you?”

“No,” Mark immediately replies, vehemently shaking his head.

“Yeah, I thought so.” Jaemin hums. “Being misunderstood is pretty lonely.” 

His eyes are distant, a touch of wistfulness through the drop of his tone. Mark wants to ask Jaemin if he’s ever been in the same situation, but before he can even think of a meager reply, Jaemin beats him to it once again.

“And if anything, he looks at you in the same way too, Mark,” he says, smile becoming brighter at the thrill of such a secret. “Life is too short. Happiness is too rare. Why not take the chance? I think it’d be admirable no matter the outcome because you had the courage to resist the fear of loss and face the person you love.” 

Mark stops again. That's always been it, hasn't it? Courage has always been a fleeting notion, an urban legend for a timid boy like him, because it is so easy to say and do but so hard to search for it within himself. But just like the influence Donghyuck has on him with spontaneity, perhaps courage is another thing Mark has adopted through spending time with Donghyuck and his heart as warm as the summer sun underneath his cloak of defiance. 

Jaemin looks at him with an illumined smile despite the clashing dark circles underneath his eyes. He was all about simplicity, making things easy and helping those around him to relax and be happy, and Mark hasn’t realized how there was something more that lies beneath that surface-level simplicity of his. 

“I don’t think people give you enough credit,” Mark says. 

“Credit for what?”

Mark picks at his brain for the right word. Wise? Sensible? Clever, despite presenting a semblance of upbeat flippancy? 

“Insightful,” Mark chooses instead. “For being insightful.”

“Huh. Haven’t been called that before.” Jaemin laughs quietly, and Mark wonders how someone so sleep-deprived can always be so full of positivity. Jaemin throws an arm around Mark and lets out a swooning sigh. “Sucks that you’re already kinda half-taken. You’re one of the only few boys in this town who’s actually got a heart that matches his face. If you weren’t already head over heels for Donghyuck, I’d probably snatch you up. Cutie Mark,” he coos, trying to land a big smooch on his cheek, and Mark yelps in his struggle to push Jaemin back. 

“I take it back,” Mark croaks once he manages to slip out of Jaemin’s grip. “You’re a total menace, on the same level as Hyuck. All of you are absolute _fiends_.”

Jaemin laughs, clutching his stomach. He bumps his hip against his, and they fall into a comfortable silence after his laughter dies down. And after walking aimlessly around town, they finally part ways at a bifurcated road that would take Jaemin to his bus stop, and Mark to his townhouse. But before they leave, Mark bumps a fist to Jaemin’s shoulder and murmurs, “Hey. Thank you.”

Jaemin smiles. “Yeah. It's no problem.”

Mark watches him leave, and his heart beats quieter.

☀

One night, when Gramps is washing the dishes while Mark is drying them and his mother is asleep upstairs in her bedroom, Mark gathers up the dredges of his courage amidst a peaceful silence between them and asks how he knew he was in love with Mark’s grandma.

“What brought this up?” Gramps asks, amused. 

“Just curious.” Mark shrugs, keeping his eyes down as he puts a plate away in the rack. Gramps hums in thought before he lets out a soft chuckle, leaning his hands against the counter, eyes trained on the chiffon-curtained window in reminiscence. 

“It was nothing grand. We sat beside each other on the pier and when I looked at her underneath the moonlight, I had that epiphany of _oh_ , she is the only one for me.” Gramps says, a weary smile gracing his lips. “Our youth was full of rosy love, but we endured many hardships, and it was easy to become jaded later on.” He’s quiet for a moment. “Then we had your mother.” 

Gramps heaves out a hefty sigh as he resumes back to washing the plates in the sink. Mark watches a certain kind of wistful sadness linger behind his movements, as though he was weighed down by an antique memory that held both happiness and pain at the same time. 

He admits, “We fought many times. The love I had felt for her in our youth slowly dwindled away. I didn’t know why. We were both so burned out by our own individual lives that we took our pain and anger out on each other, which we shouldn’t have done, because it harmed your mother in the process. And because of us, your mother thought that that was how love was supposed to be.” 

Mark pauses. He looks up at his grandpa and the guilty sheen in his eyes, and assumes what came next. “Then she met him, didn’t she?” 

“If only I had been a better father, a better husband,” Gramps murmurs, “then your mother wouldn’t have stuck with that bastard thinking things would become better through time. Perhaps your mother would have met a better man, and my grandson would still have a home.”

Mark tries to imagine it - having a father who didn’t come home happy when drunk and spiteful when sober. He tries to imagine his mother as a happy, healthy woman, who tucked him into bed every night as a child and would send him off to university with a tearful hug. Mark tries to imagine himself as a bright child pursuing his dream. He would have plenty of dreams, probably, if his family weren’t in shambles. 

But if in an alternate universe where he and his family were happy, then Mark wouldn’t be in this town anymore. He would still be in Vancouver. He wouldn’t have met Donghyuck and his little brother, the rest of the gang, Lucas, Yerim and Old Lin. Mark wouldn’t be sharing lollipops and thoughts aged like old wine with his soulmate. 

“I do have a home,” Mark insists. 

Gramps looks at him, surprised, before his expression wanes into that of gentle understanding. “Of course you do.”

“Do you still love Grandma?”

“I do,” he says, thoughtful. “I still do. Things had fallen apart because we were young and foolish. In Bernières _Captain Corelli's Mandolin,_ there is a quote that resonates deeply: ‘Love itself is what is left over, when being in love has burned away.’ That’s very important, don’t you think? Love is more than just a strong feeling. It is a judgment, a choice, a commitment. We can choose to see the good, ignore the petty, look for what we could do for our partner, and remember why we love them. That had been something your grandma and I had failed to do before she passed away.” Gramps turns to Mark. “Don’t become like me, Mark, all old and still harbouring regrets. It is not a pleasant journey onwards.” 

Mark knocks their elbows lightly as a comforting gesture. “It's okay to forgive yourself.”

Gramps gives him a resigned smile, letting out another sigh as he scrubs a greasy plate, rinses it, and hands it to him. “It's a learning curve.” His smile grows wider, brighter, as he asks, “Have you met _your_ fated one yet, Mark?”

Mark purses his lips, bringing his gaze down to the counter. The dread in his chest spreads through his body, drenching it in tension, as though he’s hooked up to a cattle fence - not enough voltage to kill but sufficient enough for discomfiture. Denying is his instinctual nature, yet his grandpa had been honest to him about the collapse of his own relationship. He simultaneously has everything and nothing to fear, but he trusts Gramps, despite the quivering in his fingers and the sinking feeling in his gut at the thought of a bad case scenario. 

But he thinks about his conversation with Jaemin and the malleable courage different to the individual, and sucks in a deep breath. 

“Donghyuck,” he blurts out, but then he stands up straighter to command his bravado, putting more confidence in his voice, “it’s Donghyuck.” 

He's never said it out loud before, but once he did, the all-encompassing love became more concrete, more tangible - integrated and accepted into his reality, like spring water washing over him in immediate clarity. 

Gramps looks at him with mild puzzlement, but then he starts to chuckle, eyes curving into happy crescents. “Oh, of course you do.”

“No, like,” Mark reiterates, assuming Gramps understood him wrong, “I mean I like _like_ him. I really, _really_ like him. _That_ kind of like. I'm - it's always been him that I've liked. I - “

“I know what you mean, Mark.” Gramps is fully laughing now. 

Mark stops, his muddled thoughts coming to a complete halt. It feels a little too anticlimactic and underwhelming from what he had been expecting. “You do?”

“It was subtly obvious.” 

Mark chews on his bottom lip, asking tentatively, “And… you're okay with it?”

“Now, why wouldn't I be? There’s nothing wrong with a boy liking another boy. The very moment you started to come back home with a happy look on your face was the day I knew for certain that Donghyuck was a special boy. Not only to you, but perhaps to the whole world.” 

Gramps places the rag over the sink, takes off the rubber gloves, and places a hand on Mark’s shoulder. “Thank you for trusting me enough, Mark, to tell me this. And I love you no matter what. Have some faith in this old man, will you?” He smiles, perhaps a bit too gleeful. “I think you two are good for each other.”

Gramps gives Mark’s shoulder a light squeeze before he finishes cleaning up the sink and towels. He puts away the gloves and shuffles away from the kitchen sink, moving towards the living room, leaving Mark behind in a wide-eyed and mildly touched state. Gramps hums one of Rossini’s overtures, mellow with a slight quivering timbre to it, muffled by the walls, landing right at the sheath of his chest and melting into the roughened edges of his heart. 

Mark smiles to himself; he has nothing to fear after all. 

He finishes wiping the plates dry and joins Gramps in the living room, and together, they look through old vinyl records of Schumann.

☀

“No, no. You gotta loop it.”

“Like this?”

“Awful. Absolutely awful. Don’t tie it like that!” 

“Uh, like this?”

“Oh my god, nevermind. I’ll do it myself. Hand it over, you uncultured millennial.” 

Mark throws his hands up in frustration when Donghyuck snatches the horribly knotted silk tie into his hands. Donghyuck disentangles the knot before he properly loops it around the collar of Mark’s white dress shirt, and from the peripheral of his vision, watches Donghyuck do a whole lot of looping and tugging that flies past Mark’s orbit of visual understanding. 

Donghyuck clicks his tongue, shaking his head. “I can’t believe you’re graduating today and you can’t even tie a tie.” 

“I’ve never worn a tie before,” Mark grumbles, keeping his gaze askew to the side. He’s never worn a suit either. It was a simple black piece that fitted him surprisingly well, considering he borrowed it from Old Lin’s grandson who’d graduated a few years ago and had the same stature and frame as Mark when they were the same age. 

Once Donghyuck slips the knot high up and snug, he helps straighten his collar and pats down his shoulders to smooth out any wrinkles. At an arm’s length, Donghyuck stares at Mark while holding his chin in a contemplative thought, scanning him from head to toe, making Mark squirm and flush a bit underneath the sudden scrutiny. Donghyuck’s eyes land on his hair and he grimaces. He reaches to tug at the strands. Mark bristles. 

“You’re not even gonna _part_ it?” 

“Why should I?”

“Oh, Mark. _Dude_. Like, I get that for someone like you it’s plausible to go for a natural attractive approach, but this is - as I emphasize, once again - is your _graduation_ day. You have to look snazzy!” Donghyuck exclaims. 

“It’s not a big deal, Hyuck, can’t you - wait,” Mark says, blinking at him in slight puzzlement when his words finally register into his brain. “Hey, did you just call me attractive?”

“Hey now. Don't go tooting your own horn, freeloader.” Donghyuck scoffs, but Mark notices the way his cheeks colour, and Mark hides a small smile behind a hand. Donghyuck takes him by the arm and drags him to the bathroom. “Thankfully, your virtuous best friend has hair gel to liven things up.”

Mark sits through an agonizing process of Donghyuck slathering a good amount of gel into his hair and styling it into micro-perfection that lives up to Donghyuck’s fickle standards. He parts his hair in a flattering way and smooths down his baby hairs that often stick up, and after a few minutes, Donghyuck crosses his arms, terribly satisfied, when Mark gives him a thumbs-up. 

After donning his graduation gown and cap, the both of them migrate out of the cottage where his grandpa and mother was talking to Ms. Lee at the vibrant garden. He shrinks in embarrassment when Ms. Lee and Gramps gushes over how handsome he looks. Mark’s mother reaches over to cup his face gently, her expression fond, and Mark wonders if it was from the refraction of a sun illusion. 

Donghyuck throws an arm around Mark’s shoulder and says it’s the hair gel. Mark pinches his neck. 

He takes photos with Donghyuck and his family, to which Jisung is forced into the frame rather grumpily but smiles nonetheless. Then there’s photos with Gramps, taken in mid-laughter when Mark tries to give him a piggyback ride, and another photo with his mother in it as well. Graduation day was not only an inauguration of the unfortunate next step in his life, but it also means a whopping, excessive amount of photos, to which Mark is subjected to for the next hour and a half. 

At one point, Mark groans when he sees Jeno barreling past the gate in his super speed, followed behind by Jaemin holding a bouquet of pink gerbera daisies and Renjun, who was using his hand as a visor from the sun. Jeno nearly knocks the wind out of Mark when he tackles him into a hug. 

“God, you really are ancient. I can't believe you're graduating and leaving us already,” Jeno says. 

Mark gets a mouthful of pretty flowers when Jaemin eagerly thrusts the bouquet to his face. “Flowers for the flower boy!”

“I'm not - “ Mark spits a petal out. “I'm not leaving yet. I haven't even walked across the stage! Stop talking like I'm about to cross the bridge to see Jesus Christ himself or something.”

“Jaemin, that's unsanitary,” Renjun says, frowning. “You literally dropped the flowers on the ground, like, five minutes ago.” 

Donghyuck laughs while Jaemin sends him a disapproving look. Mark kind of wants to strangle him, but that'd be Renjun’s job. 

Ms. Lee brings them together in a more orderly fashion to take pictures near the trellis of honeysuckle vines. It's normal at first, but then Renjun tries to lift Mark up and fails to do so with his noodly arms, although it does prompt the others to help out. Thus, cue the next few minutes of them grabbing at Mark’s limbs and attempting to lift him and throw him up into a celebratory toss, resulting in almost breaking Mark’s back. 

Afterwards, they take a group photo after Gramps fiddles with the camera stand and sets the timer. And as soon as they disperse from squeezing closely into the frame, Gramps herds Mark and Donghyuck together and suggests, “Why don't we take a photo of the two best friends?”

“Sure,” Mark says, uncertain, when Gramps smiles at him and takes the bouquet from his hands. 

He squirms a bit when Donghyuck sticks close to him, resting his head against Mark’s and placing a hand over his waist. Mark does the same, albeit hesitantly, but then Gramps pauses to delete a few photos to free up space in his camera, and they stand there waiting until he's done. They’re given momentary privacy as the others stand aside idly, chattering and bickering about something Mark assumed to be inconsequential. 

“So,” Donghyuck says, eyes focused ahead, “you're not gonna leave when you graduate?”

Mark watches as Renjun runs from a bee buzzing around him, swatting at it with a hand, before using Jeno as a shield. Jaemin watches them from the sidelines. Mark blinks, wondering if transparency affects even the most shrewd of persons. 

“I think I'm going to take a gap year,” he says, finality in his words, and he senses Donghyuck shift his head to look at him. “I'll work and save up. Maybe travel around for a bit - see if I'll end up finding a calling somewhere.”

“Travel? Like where? Vancouver?” Donghyuck snorts.  
“I was thinking somewhere like South Korea.” Mark tilts his head in feign thought. “Maybe Seoul? Jeju?”

“Oh.”

Mark hums, a smile forming on his lips. “Wanna come with?”

Donghyuck doesn’t get to answer when Gramps brings his camera up to his eye-level with the viewfinder, exclaiming, “Alright, kids. Show some spirit!”

Mark smiles straight into the camera with aching cheeks, and relieves his mouth after Gramps was done after a succession of shots. Donghyuck’s grasp on his waist remains firm even when Mark lets go. Mark throws a quizzical glance at him, but slightly recoils in surprise at the exuberant expression Donghyuck has on his face. And up close, Mark sees the way his eyes burnish in a lacquer of amber gold. 

“Okay,” Donghyuck agrees belatedly, mouth pulling into a wide grin that causes his eyes to fully crinkle, and the sight of it roseates the world around him in brighter, sweeter shades of pink and yellow. 

When Ms. Lee announces that it’s time to leave for the heritage theatre of which his graduation was taking place in, Donghyuck detaches himself from Mark’s side and bounds across the path, calling shotgun. Jaemin shoots Mark a knowing smile while he trails after the others.

Mark watches them go for a moment on his own in complete silence, complete revelation, complete adoration. The timpani of his heart ricochets in a starburst of warmth, of two stars colliding - louder than his own thoughts, and he smiles. Mark follows after them, walking past the bushes of red roses in full bloom.

 

 

When he walks across the stage, the silhouette of his father’s slouching figure recedes into the bright stage lights and the resounding applause that drowns his world in hushed delight. 

Mark proves him wrong. And it's merely just the beginning.

☀

The arrival of summer is a quiet one, creeping around the estates that prompted weeds and grass to grow in the cracked pavements. The sibilance of cicadas grow in a swarming harmony, and just like the blooming of new moons, secrets unfurl along to its completion. Mark supposes there is something significant about the season, something nostalgically influenced, that leads him to a sudden discovery.

The sun has become a yellow inferno, kindling heat above the roof of his house as he lounges in the living room. His shirt sticks to his damp back as he browses through the pictures on his grandpa’s camera once he finally finds the time to go over them after completing the last of his exams. His mother was outside in the sun tending to the overgrown grass in the backyard, while his grandpa had stepped out to attend his book club meeting. 

The end of school felt both relieving and alien. A little sad too. He’d certainly miss watching Lucas make a fool out of himself whether it be unintentionally or not, and Yerim, with her quick-witted comebacks. But he thinks there is beauty to an end of a beginning, and there is beauty in a new beginning. 

There’s photos of them fooling around that brings a smile to his face, such as the photo where all of them were pulling at his cheeks and ears and making him look like a monkey. There are photos at the graduation event with him, Lucas and Yerim; more solo photos of Mark, and plenty of them were candids as well. But once Mark lands on the next photo of him and Donghyuck at the cottage garden, his breath gets caught in his chest. 

Mark was smiling at the camera, but Donghyuck was smiling at _him._

It could have easily been brushed off at the first glance, but Mark was unable take his eyes off the way Donghyuck was looking at him: the supple dent above his lip, the tender curve to his smile, the delicate fondness brimming in his halfmoon eyes that replaced the perpetual fire in them. And then he remembers the smile he had on his face when he said yes to Mark.

_“You look at him as though he hung the stars in the sky.”_

Jaemin’s words come back to swathe him in clarity. 

_“And if anything, he looks at you in the same way too, Mark.”_

The world beneath his feet tilts. 

He shakes his head; Mark is jumping to conclusions. He’s overthinking it. He’s assuming. But Mark will never know the possible truth that his heart and mind were making alike if he doesn’t take this leap of faith. And If he’s learned anything all these years, it’s to stay afraid but to have courage to do it anyways, because it is worth much more than cowering in fear. 

And because he’s spent too much time around Donghyuck, influenced by his inclination for impulsivity and the spur of the moment, Mark puts down the camera and gets up from the couch. 

Then he runs out of the house.

The sun is still high in the sky. When he checks the time, it’s merely half past three in the afternoon, which means Donghyuck was already finishing up the last of his exams. Mark grabs his bike from the back, telling his mother that he’d be right back, and pedals down the road and across town that would take him out to the halcyon neighborhood and to Donghyuck’s school without a second thought. 

A breeze brushes past him with the faint scent of salty ocean air mixing with suntan lotion. He rides across the bumpy, gravel road, aligned with pampas grass and wildflowers; the heat leaves his skin sticky and damp and it feels as though he was carrying the sun on his back. 

He arrives at the school around four. He bikes past the main entrance and heads to the back where the parking lot is located at, pulling up to a stop at the rusted fence that looked polished underneath the glare of the sunlight. Mark leaves his bike leaning against the fence, surveying the area around him. There were a few students lingering around the building and a few leaving the school. His legs burn and his lungs ache. It feels as though he swallowed a meteor hurtling towards earth engulfed in flames. 

He wonders if Donghyuck has already left. Mark _probably_ should have called or texted first, but then he sees Jaemin push past the doors of the back entrance, followed by Renjun, Jeno, and then Donghyuck. Mark’s heartbeat spikes and he immediately approaches them, overhearing parts of their conversation that consisted of Renjun reprimanding Jeno for studying by osmosis. And once he grows nearer, Donghyuck is all he can see in his tunnel vision - the cynosure of a sunspot.

The sun beats down on Mark in a hazy persistence that makes him ignore the surprised greetings from the others, propelling him to walk straight to Donghyuck and block his path. 

“Mark? What - “

“What did you mean?” Mark asks, swallowing down the apprehension bubbling up his throat. 

He doesn’t think he’s ever seen Donghyuck look more confused than he’s ever been. “What? Mean what? No, wait. Why are you even _here_? You’re all sweaty and gross and out of breath. Should we be - “

“What did you mean when you said that I'm your yellow?” 

Donghyuck is stunned into silence. So are the other three, but Jaemin must have caught onto what Mark was doing and takes Renjun and Jeno by the arm. “Well, guess we’ll just leave you two alone then. See you two later!” He sends Mark an encouraging smile as he drags the other two with him, ignoring their nosy protests. As soon as they disappear around the gate, Mark turns his attention back to Donghyuck, who was still reluctant to answer. 

When he does finally open his mouth, all he asks is, “That’s what you came all the way here for?” Donghyuck clicks his tongue, annoyed with a faint tinge of embarrassment written across his expression as Mark stands there, steadfast and unyielding in his obstinacy for an answer. Overcome with defeat, Donghyuck sighs and runs his hands through his hair. “I can’t believe you’re gonna make me say this out loud with people around us, Mark.”

A sudden thought intrudes his mind, washing over him in doubt. “Is it something bad?”

“No. Of course not.” Donghyuck makes a frustrated noise, scratching at his head. “It’s nothing _bad,_ it’s just - I didn’t think I’d have to explain it. It’s literally self-explanatory, God. Okay. You know that yellow is my favourite colour, Mark. It’s a happy colour. It’s - it’s always meant happiness to me. And you should know what it means when I said that you’re my yellow by now, slowpoke.” 

His words slowly sink in, and like pieces of scattered puzzles lost across sea, Mark has finally found the missing parts and pieced them together into completion. 

_You’re my happiness._

“Oh,” Mark breathes. 

“Yeah. _Oh_.” A blush blooms across Donghyuck’s face. He folds in his lips, clearly embarrassed at the sentimentality. Mark’s heart fills up with warmth that can outrival the scorching sun. Before he’s aware of his own actions, his mouth begins to move out of the command of his heart, distantly blaming the summer heat disorientating his senses and causing his brain to haywire - but there is too much to contain; his heart is overflowing and pouring out into the rivers of the world. 

“Grow old with me.”

Mark’s heart hammers in his ears but he supposes that his heart never beats quite normal around Donghyuck. He can feel his blood rush all the way to his cheeks when Donghyuck stares at him, puzzled. Donghyuck has Mark’s heart and he doesn’t even know it. 

“What?”

His fingers are quivering as he plays with the ends of his hair. “Grow old with me, together. As in, I want to - I want to spend the rest of my life with you, where we’ll watch each other grow all wrinkly and saggy and maybe bitter and jaded but still content. Still happy. I want that with you.” 

Donghyuck is eerily silent, but Mark can’t look at him in the eye. Not yet. He keeps his eyes averted to the side. He feels as though he’s going to explode, as though the sunlight is seeping underneath his skin and burning him from the inside out.

“Mark,” Donghyuck murmurs. “You’re gonna to have to be more specific.” 

He pauses to slightly ponder, piecing together his fragment of thoughts. _I’m in love with you_. No, no. That implies that Mark would fall _out_ of love with him in the future, and Mark can never see himself doing that. Words cannot contain the magnitude of what Mark feels for Donghyuck, of how important he is. 

Mustering up the last remains of his courage, Mark glances up at Donghyuck, finding that his eyes are wide but they stay clear. Curious. Always seeing him rather than merely looking; a calming influence despite the chaos. Even though Mark is rough around the edges and a little too crooked and unrefined, Donghyuck accepts him for all that he is and loves him in his jagged shape of a human being who is still trying to learn and grow without anything return. 

“Lee Donghyuck,” Mark whispers. “I love you.” 

He closes his eyes. The pressure leaves him, like air leaving a balloon, when he declares it to the quiet world. Mark takes in a deep breath, letting the silence loom over them in what Mark assumes to be an answer. Mark opens his eyes. Donghyuck has his mouth hanging open as though all the words have been caught in his throat and woven into nonexistence. Something twists in his chest.

“Sorry.” Mark swallows, pointedly staring at the pebbles strewn across the ground. And then the next thing he knows, he’s turning on his feet and walking away. 

There’s an itch crawling over his leg in an urge to just run when the sun on his shoulders grows heavier, the bleak rejection hanging over him like a stormy rain cloud he didn’t know would taste so bitter and thick. But at the end, he’d told himself that if all goes unwell, what he wishes out of this is for his confession to serve as a reminder for Donghyuck that he is loved by all and forgotten by none, even if his heart is broken along the process. But he doesn’t get too far when vehement footsteps approach him from behind and Donghyuck snatches his wrist, tugging him to a rough halt.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Donghyuck asks gritted teeth. “You can’t just - you can’t just _leave_ after that, Mark. What the fuck. You have to continue, you asshole. Since when?”

The warmth of Donghyuck’s hand wrapped around his wrist encompasses him whole like sunlight covering the earth, and his breath catches in his chest. Mark lifts a finger and places it on a mole on Donghyuck’s cheek, feeling him shiver underneath his touch as Mark gently traces the constellation. “Maybe when I first discovered this.” Mark’s voice trembles. “But I didn’t actually realize until - not long ago. When you came to apologize that rainy day. I don’t know.” He brings his hand away. “I think I’ve always loved you since the very beginning but I just - didn't know it until now.” 

Donghyuck looks a little lost and agitated at once. Mark looks down. “You don’t have to love me in the same way. Just - you loving me as your best friend is enough. It’s enough for me. I just - I don’t want this to ruin things. I - no matter what happens, you’re still my best friend, and I just - I just really, really, wanted to let you know how I genuinely feel but I’ll try not to make things hard for you, Hyuckie, just please don’t - “ 

“Wait, Mark. You gotta - _wait,_ ” Donghyuck grabs his other wrist to stop his hand from gesturing wildly in the air. “My brain is literally half-fried after doing a dozen of quadratic functions. Slow down, okay?” 

Mark clamps his mouth shut. He nods. 

Donghyuck’s expression softens. He slips his hands into Mark’s and intertwines them instead, staring down at them in ponderous thought. The silence stretches across the wide expansion of the peach-streaked sky; the sun casts a dim halo over Donghyuck’s head, faired with pink tones from the heavens and Mark thinks that the entire season of summer belongs to Donghyuck only and only him. 

It feels like eternity when Donghyuck finally speaks.

“You love me?” Donghyuck asks. “And you want to grow old with me, even though I’ll cut ten years off from your entire lifespan by annoying you into oblivion for the rest of your life?”

Mark startles into a laugh. “I grew up with you, Hyuck. I’ve already dealt with the extreme extent of your annoying self. It’s become endearing.” 

“And even though I'm, like. Super clingy at times? And _will_ steal you away from your task at hand just so I can cuddle?”

“Yes.”

“Even though I borrow your clothes and never return them?”

“I seriously hate that you do that, but yes.”

“Even though all I’m ever gonna give you for your birthday is ketchup?”

“That’s just plain _rude_. But unfortunately enough, yes.” 

“Good.” Donghyuck’s mouth pulls into an ear-to-ear grin. Effervescent and lovely. “I love you too, idiot.” 

The world spins around him, but Donghyuck is fixed in spot, clear and unyielding like the rock of gibraltar. Colours fill his view, oversaturated but bright. Donghyuck shines just as golden as the sun that fills his heart with stars connected in tandem. The universe aligns and the heavens open up. 

“You do?” Mark breathes in disbelief. His hands shake. 

Donghyuck squeezes his hand with a firm nod. “I love you more than how much you love your books and that’s like, a _lot._ ” 

Mark is speechless. Donghyuck’s words churn around in his head but he lacks the comprehensibility to react, because he is too taken by him. Too enamored. He doesn’t know what to do but wrap his arms around Donghyuck and pull him close into a hug, burying his face into his neck. Mark holds him tightly, afraid that if he were to loosen just a tiny bit, Donghyuck would slip from his grasp like air through the gaps of his fingers. 

“Don’t be so surprised, Mark,” Donghyuck scoffs, but there is no bite to it. Only tenderness. “You should know that you, of all people, deserve all the love in the world. How can anybody not love you?” 

Mark presses his nose against Donghyuck’s warm neck. He understands the stark austerity of loving someone and the fear of not being enough, but his heart beats with certainty in contrast to the irrational fears of his mind that, perhaps, this change has always meant to happen. And though Mark has always lived in comfort with the wish for a lack of change in his life, he knows that he’ll never be truly happy if he continues to live on within that unvarying space that allows no growth. No progress.

Donghyuck is facing him with courage and the hope for something more. Mark will do the same. 

When Mark pulls back, Donghyuck is grinning at him with all the wonders in the world and Mark wonders how he could have ever been afraid in the first place. His eyes begin to sting. 

“Oh - dude. _Dude_. Are you crying? Mark, are you _crying_? You’re crying, oh my god.” Donghyuck gapes at him in pure awe as Mark vigorously rubs at his eyes and at the snot dripping from his nose. Donghyuck breaks into a tiny fit of giggles, tugging at Mark’s ears to mess with him. “Aw c’mon, now. You're not supposed to be cuter than me.” Mark snorts, looking offended. Donghyuck ignores him. “This is supposed to be the part where we, like. I dunno. Makeout or some shit. Put the cherry on top and all that.”

Mark chokes on his own spit. “Shut up. You’re going to _kill_ me.”

Donghyuck laughs, brazen and proud, and hugs him again. He plants a wet kiss onto Mark’s temple and Mark hides his burning face into his shoulder. This warmth is something he vows to never let go.

☀

“Pay up, fools,” Jaemin cackles as he makes grabby hands at Renjun and Jeno, who were begrudgingly taking out their wallets. “A hundred-fifty dollars up front, suckers!”

“Couldn’t you guys at least wait until the end of the month to do _that_? I could have won myself a new Xbox,” Jeno complains as he shuffles through his wallet, taking out crumpled bills that’d accumulate to such a large amount of money. Turns out that the three of them had not left after disappearing around the gate, and had sneaked back to spy on them. And once they’d all taken a glance at Mark’s and Donghyuck’s intertwined hands, they either rejoiced in utter victory or lamented in their loss. Mark had watched on with confusion but Donghyuck, on the other hand, was not amused. 

“I can’t believe you guys betted on us - on our relationship,” Donghyuck exclaims. “On our _happiness_!”

“Don’t be so dramatic, Hyuck. It was obvious you two were in love, and it took you about damn time. You guys are just dumb and oblivious as fuck. Now you can spare us the blatant moonstruck pining we’ve all been subjected to witnessing ever since eighth grade.” Renjun snorts, rolling his eyes as he slaps a wad of bills onto Jaemin’s opened palm. “And in our defense, we betted on _everything._ Even little Jisungie owes the winner here a hundred and fifty bucks.”

“Oh,” Donghyuck muttered. “That little shit.”

Jaemin is fanning himself with the money as they all begin to walk home together. Mark slips away from Donghyuck who was too busy planning a revolt against his own little brother, and Jaemin hooks their arms together, visibly pleased with the results. 

“Um, congrats?” Mark tries.

“Ha! You betcha.” Jaemin grins, but his enthusiasm dims down a bit as he continues, a look of apprehension in the clear sheen of his eyes. “Hey. You know I approached you about it because I really cared about you guys, and not because of the bet, right?” 

Mark frowns. That kind of thought never crossed his mind at all. “Of course I do. You’re not that kind of person.” 

Jaemin beams, and Mark grins. "But you _should_ treat me to pancakes with that money you profited from us."

Jaemin taps him on the shoulder with the cash. "Deal."

Once they part ways, Mark takes hold of Donghyuck’s hand again as they tread quietly down the path to the cottage. But then Donghyuck suddenly turns from the path and goes down the familiar road that Mark can’t help but follow behind in fondness. The playground is where everything began. 

The swings, rusty and weathered, awaited them underneath the velvet sky and descending sun. They don’t let go even as they sit on the swings, watching the trees rustle faintly to the winds from an approaching evening, and Mark’s mind wanders back to the past, illuminated by how much time has already gone by. It’s a wondrous thing to reflect, and even more of a wondrous thing to see where they are now. 

Mark turns his head to look at Donghyuck. He wonders if it is fate that brought Mark and a certified strawberry lollipop hoarder and pickpocketer of the sunlight together, who Mark ends up loving like the sky that loves the birds, with open hands and infinite freedom.

“Are you gonna stare at me all day?” Donghyuck slants him a glance. 

“Yup,” Mark says. “Totally gonna do that for the rest of my life.”

Donghyuck shoves his shoulder. Mark shoves back. They look at each other in momentary silence before they break out in a string of giggles.

“Hey,” Donghyuck says, softer. Mark is brought back to a memory of them lounging underneath the summer sun when they were younger. “Do you still miss home?”

Mark blinks. The urban streets, the blur of downtown Vancouver and its vices and virtues that linger in its alleyways, the sweet snowfalls that’d enwrap his house in a frigid embrace along with the unpredictable rainfalls that matched his plaintive moods - they were all no longer waiting for his return. 

“No,” he says firmly. “You’re here, aren’t you?”

Donghyuck stares at him with all the summer starlight in his eyes, before he lets out an euphoric laugh, cradles the sides of Mark’s face and kisses him right there and then. It is gentle yet firm; the warm courage of stars travels through their mouths and lingers in his whole body. Invigorating, quiet and sweet, like the delicate unravelling of a human being in motion. He wants to write a long billet-doux to the moon, spilling everything his heart is overflowing with. But there is one main thing he wants the moon to know.

The sun really does taste like strawberries.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> that's the end, folks!! thank u all so much for reading it really means a lot!!!!! and i hope the ending was satisfying enough | ू*꒦ິ꒳꒦ີ);; <333

**Author's Note:**

> (this takes place in a fictional town!) 
> 
> [twitter](https://twitter.com/suncygnus) | [curiouscat](https://curiouscat.me/sunsprite)


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